Pepita fotografeert een stel in een trein before 1948

Hans Borrebach made this drawing, Pepita fotografeert een stel in een trein, with ink on paper. You can tell it's ink because the lines are so crisp and even, a real contrast to the messy pencil sketches surrounding the main image, like he’s working it all out, trying different things. I bet Borrebach was a real observer of life! To capture this everyday moment, the photographer with her camera raised, the couple in the train carriage embracing—it's like he's inviting us into this little narrative. I wonder what he was thinking about as he drew it. Was he interested in the way people connect, or just in the everyday scenes around him? For me, it relates to the work of cartoonists, but it's also something else, something more personal. You see his thought process and get a sense of the artist's mind at work. And that, for me, is the real magic of drawing: to capture something, preserve it, and put it in conversation with the rest of art history.