Les Deux Meres 1903

Editor: This is “Les Deux Mères” by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, created in 1903. It's a drawing, it seems mostly pencil, maybe some etching as well? I find it very simple, almost unfinished, yet there’s a real tenderness in how the mothers are holding their children. What catches your eye? Curator: What immediately strikes me is the medium itself: pencil. Steinlen's choice of such an accessible and readily available material is significant. Consider the socio-economic context of 1903 Paris; cheap materials like this connect directly to a world of accessible art-making and broader consumer habits. How does the seeming sketch-like quality speak to the social realities he was portraying? Editor: I hadn’t thought about the *pencil* itself being important, just what it depicted. So, the everydayness of the pencil connects to the everyday lives of these mothers? Curator: Precisely. And observe the deliberate looseness of the line work. Is it simply unfinished, or is Steinlen actively rejecting academic polish in favor of capturing something raw, immediate? Something of working-class life and labor perhaps? Think about the cost of oil paints versus pencils at the time, how does access to art making shape not only who can produce it, but how it represents reality? Editor: So, he’s making a conscious decision to use less precious materials to depict a subject – motherhood – that’s often romanticized? The roughness of the pencil counters that? Curator: Absolutely. It brings the realities of labour into focus – the material process of art mirrors the labour of motherhood itself. How does thinking about it that way change your understanding of the image? Editor: It makes me think about how even the materials artists choose have a voice, can tell a story about their world. I'll never look at a pencil drawing the same way again! Curator: Exactly, seeing the artist's hand through the materials they use, it connects us more deeply to not just their image but their lived reality.