Machteld Honig met echtgenoot, 1933 1933 - 1938

This small, anonymous photograph from 1933, shows Machteld Honig with her husband. Isn’t it funny how a simple snapshot can feel so loaded? The palette of grays, from charcoal to almost-white, gives the whole scene a kind of gauzy, dreamy quality. It's like the memory itself is fading around the edges. The man in his bright suit, the woman in her patterned dress, there’s a real tenderness in the way they are linked arm in arm. But look closer, the photograph is almost too perfect; the grass is unkempt and the faces almost unreadable. It reminds me of some of Gerhard Richter’s paintings, the way he blurs and softens the images, playing with memory and the way it can elude you. In the end, art is an invitation to look deeper, to find our own stories in the quietest of images.