Brief aan Mien Cambier van Nooten Possibly 1937 - 1938

Curator: Before us we have "Brief aan Mien Cambier van Nooten," a piece attributed to Dick Ket, likely created between 1937 and 1938. It's currently housed in the Rijksmuseum. The work comprises pen and ink drawings on paper. What's your first reaction to it? Editor: Overwhelming. An entire page filled edge-to-edge with frenetic script—the visual impression is less of a letter and more like a cry for help barely contained within the borders. The intense texture almost vibrates with a barely suppressed anxiety. Curator: Indeed, if we place this letter within Ket's broader biography, its sense of anxiety becomes palpable. A significant portion of Ket's life was marked by isolation due to severe health issues. This letter then becomes a window into his social world, the longing for connection and grappling with personal circumstances under immense external pressures leading up to WWII. Editor: Absolutely. Look at the deliberate, yet uncontrolled, hand. Each stroke feels heavy with meaning, a personal iconography taking shape as he transfers inner thought onto the page. Consider, too, how handwritten correspondence carries its own weight of intimacy, a reaching out to someone. Here it’s amplified. The letter’s very form becomes a symbol. Curator: Moreover, understanding the historical context in the late 1930s adds another layer. Ket, working in a time of immense political upheaval and personal constraint, presents a narrative of resilience, yet simultaneously, profound loneliness and fear. It reveals an intimate, perhaps desperate, human-to-human connection. Editor: It truly embodies the power of art to immortalize a personal narrative, beyond just conveying the literal text, offering a glimpse into a particular, troubled consciousness in dialogue with its immediate world. This dense tapestry of lines and words becomes an icon of vulnerability, doesn't it? Curator: Yes, on a certain level, a potent reminder of individual lives existing always within grander socio-political narratives. Editor: It is. It will stay with me.