Afbeeldingen van de woningen van de familie Wachenheimer in Rotterdam (Van Aerssenlaan 22) en Stuttgart (Hauptmannsreute 32), 1937-1938, Rotterdam/Stuttgart 1937 - 1938

The Wachenheimer family made this photographic album of their homes in Rotterdam and Stuttgart around 1937-38. There’s a kind of poignancy in the way that these images, presented as a collection, attempt to fix and hold onto a sense of place and belonging. The texture of the photograph itself – its grainy, grayscale surface – adds to the sense of history and memory. You can almost feel the smooth surface of the album page. Each photograph is like a little window into a vanished world. It’s interesting how the family chose to arrange these images together. The neat, ordered grid contrasts with the emotional weight of the subject matter. It reminds me a little of the work of Gerhard Richter, who also uses photographs as source material for paintings, exploring themes of memory and history. But unlike Richter's blurred and distorted images, there is a clarity and directness here, a quiet dignity. Ultimately, these images are about loss, displacement, and the power of memory to sustain us in difficult times.