Brief aan Françoise W.M. Bonger Possibly 1939

Curator: So, this delicate object before us is entitled "Brief aan Françoise W.M. Bonger," or "Letter to Françoise W.M. Bonger." It’s a pen and ink drawing on paper, thought to have been created around 1939 by Pierre-Georges Martin. Editor: The texture! Look at how the ink bleeds slightly into the page. There's something so intimate about seeing the handwritten words and the tiny imperfections that reveal the writer's hand and intentions. You feel like you're reading over someone's shoulder, right there with them. Curator: Absolutely. The letterhead indicates it was written from 89 Whitelands House in Chelsea. Françoise Bonger, the recipient, was, of course, the widow of Theo van Gogh, and instrumental in promoting Vincent’s work. The letter itself appears to express regret over a postponed trip. Editor: It's poignant. Nineteen thirty-nine… the air thick with tension as war looms. The mundane becomes precious, the simple act of correspondence freighted with a desire for connection before… well, who knows what lay ahead? He’s wanting to visit her, expressing disappointment that he cannot come because of other events that made her to left Amsterdam Curator: Yes, one can’t help but feel the weight of that historical context. A seemingly simple note becomes imbued with a deeper sense of longing and perhaps even foreboding. The delay is a metaphor. This message would never cross the channel so she could know of his regard for her and sadness they would not be seeing each other soon, if ever. Editor: Exactly! Art helps make sense of things! Think about how many people read those letters she saved that might never have read a comic, seen some art, much less care what someone in a far-off land, even nearby Holland, thought, but here they all were, caring that the mail would go through at least once! Now you are an artist, and what do you plan to have saved to be able to teach about life as an artist through the things that people held and read and valued? So much time writing all of this in those times, like today on screens, things lost by hard drive damage. How to keep going when losing? Is what art has brought to humanity! Curator: Well, that is all very relevant. And perhaps seeing this piece reminds us of the fragile nature of communication and the enduring power of art to connect us across time. Editor: Precisely. Each mark here holds whispers, shadows of an individual perspective. As an artist, one appreciates so strongly the message, however the form has held that idea inside of it since the idea had the impulse to arrive here in material from the inmaterial world.