Latch c. 1939

Curator: Fritz Boehmer, around 1939, created this mixed-media drawing titled “Latch.” It presents a somewhat abstracted, close-up view of precisely that – a latch. What strikes you first about the piece? Editor: Its curious simplicity, paradoxically. The latch fills the frame, asserting its form with clean lines and quiet dignity. But it also possesses a melancholy stillness—an almost unsettling silence. Curator: A silence embedded in a commonplace object. We interact with latches daily, hardly registering their presence. Boehmer asks us to reconsider the symbolic weight of a functional object that governs entry and exit. What is held inside? What is kept out? These are very charged ideas at the close of the 1930s. Editor: True. The medium itself seems significant; the subtle gradations achieved with pencil and watercolour lend the metallic object an almost ethereal quality. The rendering isn't photographic, though. The stark simplicity is deliberate. Curator: Look at the gentle curves offset by the rigid angles. There’s a psychological tension—the domestic, yet fortified. During this period, physical security was often compromised, leading to emotional insecurity, so an item that secures the domestic space is important, even archetypal. Editor: I'm intrigued by the lack of context, though. It isolates the latch from any specific door or gate. The latch exists purely as an object of scrutiny, allowing for a deeper contemplation of form. Do you agree it serves almost as an abstract meditation? Curator: Certainly. By divesting the latch of its immediate purpose, Boehmer allows it to become a vessel, carrying concerns about security, safety, and the longing for stability, as its cultural function becomes more profound and complex. Editor: So it transforms from mere functional hardware to a signifier pregnant with meanings of shelter and denial, freedom and imprisonment, even longing and nostalgia, I think. That's quite profound. Curator: And it’s beautifully rendered. Thinking about this latch as more than just a latch deepens the aesthetic appreciation, wouldn't you agree? Editor: Yes, viewing it formally and symbolically adds complexity. Thank you for showing me such interesting work today.