Drie portretten van jonge vrouwen 1900 - 1930

Bleuet assembled these three portraits of young women into a photograph album. The treatment of the images is wonderful, each bathed in a different hue, as if color had been coaxed into being, like a memory. The image to the left is tinted blue, evoking feelings of melancholy, yet the figure is joyous, holding a flower in her hand. To the right, the figure is transformed into a sepia dream, the draped clothing creating soft tonal shifts. In the center, the figure is cropped so that she is surrounded by what appears to be the petals of a flower, in a vibrant pink. This use of color is so interesting! It’s as if Bleuet were trying to paint with light, crafting a new way of seeing. Thinking about the images together, it reminds me of Hannah Höch, whose photomontages created new possibilities for representation and expression. Both artists use collage to ask us to see the world in new ways.