Portret van Leo Blumensohn, de eerste echtgenoot van Isabel Wachenheimer met donkere vraag en rechter zijscheiding in het haar, 1945-1949 1945 - 1949

This small black and white photograph, made sometime between 1945 and 1949, shows Leo Blumensohn, first husband of Isabel Wachenheimer. The artist remains anonymous, but I wonder who they were and what their relationship was to the sitter. The tonality of the image is so striking, that lovely grey scale, and it is a fairly straightforward portrait. But there is something that is really quite charming about his half-smile. I can imagine the artist encouraging him to relax and let his guard down. “Don’t be so serious, Leo!” they might have said. It's fascinating to think of this as a collaborative process, the artist and the sitter negotiating the terms of representation, each bringing their own intentions and desires to the encounter. This dance between artist and subject is an essential aspect of portraiture, inviting us to contemplate the layers of meaning and interpretation embedded in the work. You get a real sense of a specific time here, too, a moment captured and preserved.