Brief aan Philip Zilcken 1865 - 1922

Curator: This is “Brief aan Philip Zilcken,” dating from between 1865 and 1922, a drawing by Suze Robertson rendered in ink on paper. Editor: It has an immediacy about it. The thinness of the line work suggests the writing may be very delicate and quick – almost dashed off, as though there was no time to lose in capturing the ideas it carries. Curator: Right, and in looking at a piece like this, especially since we have so little concrete information about its exact creation, the act of letter-writing in this period is worth considering in detail. What does it mean to physically correspond with someone at this time? Editor: Absolutely, and how accessible were pen, ink, and paper, really? Even if these materials seem commonplace to us now, consider their social implications when produced. The relationship to literacy and societal rank at this time must inform the act of creation significantly. Curator: Precisely! As well as how limitations of communication shape language—perhaps heightening both urgency and poeticism. Suze Robertson was an important figure in Dutch art, often depicting the lives of working-class women. Considering this, who could Zilcken be in relation to the artist herself? This piece suggests both familiarity and the weight of social and professional hierarchies that governed interpersonal exchange. Editor: The choice of ink on paper also interests me because this would be her mode for writing. Her materials speak not only to her privilege and circumstance, but to a practical everyday means through which a voice of her time found life and shape, through the letter form. It becomes something valuable through utility and the transfer of emotion in physical form. Curator: In many ways, the personal letter gives form to so many narratives about access, communication, power, and ultimately perhaps even community across difference. Editor: I agree; it speaks to what labor makes accessible, allowing one to connect material realities to emotional ones.