Afrikaanse vrouwen met hoofddoeken c. 1916 - 1945

Reijer Stolk sketched these African women with headscarves, probably in the early 20th century. It's a page torn from a sketchbook – a quick study, really. I can imagine Stolk, eyes darting, trying to capture the essence of these figures with the fewest possible lines. Look at how the shapes of the headscarves are suggested with a bare minimum of marks; the bodies barely there. The artist’s eye lingers on the fabric, the way it wraps and folds. There's a tenderness in the observation, a real interest in the play of light on the draped forms. The writing scrawled across the page—notes to himself on color, light, texture. What were the circumstances in which Stolk found himself? Was he a tourist or an anthropologist? Or was he driven by some deeper, artistic impulse? It makes me think about artists like Matisse, who were similarly fascinated by the visual richness of other cultures and how we still respond to that.