Drie meisjes dansen voor een postkantoor before 1925

Anny Leusink made this drawing, Three Girls Dancing Before a Post Office, with ink on paper. The marks have a scratchy, searching quality, full of little hesitations, like she's thinking through the scene as she's drawing it. The fun is in the contrast between the figures in the foreground, the three girls themselves, and the post office worker peering out from the window. I love the way Leusink captures the girls' carefree energy with just a few quick lines, compared to the more detailed, almost caricatured face of the worker. Check out his eyes and pursed lips. It's like she's saying something about the joy of youth versus the drudgery of work. It makes me think of someone like George Grosz, but with a lighter touch. And yet there's a subtle critique here too, a sense of the artist observing and commenting on the social dynamics of her time. Art’s always in conversation, isn't it?