Kerst- en nieuwjaarswens met een portret van Iris Berry bij een fiets 1910 - 1930

This sepia toned photograph, whose artist is sadly unknown, presents Iris Berry and her bicycle within a festive Christmas and New Year greeting. I love how the photo has come into being, slowly and deliberately, in a world before the ease of digital photography. I'm thinking about the way the subject may have been posed, and what that means for the artist. Maybe the artist knew Iris, and this was a gesture of affection? Or perhaps it was a commercial transaction, a formal portrait? Look at the gesture of Iris's hands. They seem almost reluctant on the handlebars, as though she's caught between wanting to be out riding, and wanting to pose nicely. I wonder whether other photographers may have inspired the image. Maybe the photographer saw a painting once with a similar composition, and it stuck in their head? Art making is an ongoing conversation, a dialogue of ideas across time. It makes me wonder what traces of those conversations we're leaving behind, and who might pick them up one day.