Omslagblad voor vignetten: Venus Vignet voor boek 'L'art Hollandais contemporain' van Paul Fierens 1932 - 1933

Here's a drawing on paper by Leo Gestel, a kind of palimpsest of mark making. Imagine Gestel with a graphite or charcoal stick hovering over the paper, trying to get the inscription just right. I wonder what it’s like to have an idea for a cover design buzzing around in your head, and how you then coax it out through the hand? What kinds of corrections and adjustments did he make? What was his thinking? There’s a real sense of immediacy, a direct record of the artist’s thinking process. You can see the lines, the hesitations, the moments of clarity. It's the intimacy of the sketch I like, that feeling that you're seeing something raw and unfiltered. It reminds me that art-making is a kind of conversation. Gestel was in dialogue with other artists of his time, responding to their ideas, pushing back against them, and trying to find his own voice.