Zelfportret met zijn schetsboek in de dodencel: B-1-1, 10 januari Possibly 1942

Curator: Here we have Cor van Teeseling’s self-portrait, drawn with pencil in what might have been 1942, titled "Self-portrait with his sketchbook in the death cell: B-1-1, January 10th." Editor: It's so spare, isn’t it? That tight grid of the window behind him, his own face etched with what looks like profound weariness…there's a starkness that cuts right through me. Curator: Indeed. The material limitations amplify the emotional weight. It's just pencil on paper; a means to document experience under duress. A prisoner drawing his surroundings using simple supplies issued or bartered, becoming an act of quiet defiance. Editor: Yes! And how he makes the most of it, turning meager resources into, well, more than "just" art. You can practically feel the grit of the pencil, the texture of the paper...the weight of the walls. Did the choice of materials, or rather lack of them, force a kind of...honesty, maybe? Stripped bare, both artist and art object. Curator: It's possible. What emerges through these raw materials and straightforward techniques, is an astonishing intimacy, a raw sense of being present in the act of looking. And notice how even in captivity, the sketchbook symbolizes artistic freedom, a space for imaginative liberation, a small rectangle reflecting his larger reality. Editor: Absolutely. The sketchbook becomes his portal. A tiny revolution conducted with lead and paper against brick and bars. He even captures a glimpse of freedom. See the open windows on the bricked-over side, suggesting someone perhaps escaping? Curator: Or perhaps simply the passage of time. Regardless, it infuses hope, and reveals so much about the necessity of creativity as survival. To use such basic tools to claim an identity, to create something meaningful amidst utter dehumanization...it resonates even now, decades later. Editor: And to think, this drawing is not just lines on paper but evidence of the power of human resilience made visible, even in the face of absolute confinement. Profound indeed.