Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1925

This is Rose Imel’s handwritten letter to Philip Zilcken, dated February 9th, 1925. It’s a kind of gesture, isn’t it? All these looping cursive forms, pressing onto the page. Imagine Imel, bent over this piece of paper, the pen scratching and gliding. What was on her mind as she wrote these words to Zilcken? The page becomes a field, like a canvas, each word a mark. You know, it reminds me of Cy Twombly, that gorgeous scrawl of his. It's a dance between intention and chance, where the personal and the universal blur. What is the relationship between writing and drawing, and the act of mark-making? Even though this is a letter, there is an exchange of ideas, an intimate conversation, both within the page and between artists. What you see is the artist's hand and thought. How do we interpret something so intimate? It is like a dance between intention and chance, where the personal and the universal blur.