Souvenir 1921

Albert Bloch made this painting, Souvenir, using oil paint, but when? Who knows? What strikes me about this painting is the way Bloch handles paint – it's like he’s wrestling with it, trying to pin down a memory, or maybe a feeling. The colours are muted, like an old photograph, and the brushstrokes are visible, almost rough, as if he’s building the image up layer by layer. Look at the crowd of faces in the lower-left corner. They're not quite portraits, more like masks, each one capturing a different expression. Bloch uses dark outlines to define their features, giving them a sense of depth and intensity. It's like he’s trying to capture the essence of a collective experience, a shared memory. Bloch reminds me of someone like Max Beckmann, who also used a kind of raw, expressive approach to paint to explore the complexities of human experience. Ultimately, Souvenir remains elusive, inviting us to bring our own memories and associations to the work, which is what makes painting so much fun!