Philips lampen in alle sterkten 1906 - 1945

Reijer Stolk made this print, Philips Lampen in Alle Sterkten, sometime before 1945. The graphic image shows a hand holding a lightbulb. What is the symbolic gesture that brings such contrasting images together? A skeleton hand! This feels like a metaphor for how we illuminate ideas, how we see the world in different ways. The hand makes me think of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but instead, they are unscrewing a lightbulb! What kind of person was Stolk? I imagine him with a quirky sense of humor, because this image is dark, twisted, and funny all at once. I see the influence of expressionism and the avant-garde, which brought a new kind of figuration to the Netherlands. I hope my work can bring as much light to the world as Stolk's.