Brief aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1906 - 1920

This is a letter, ‘Brief aan Philip Zilcken’, composed in 1906 by Sir Francis Seymour Haden. The letter’s text presents a clear, efficient response, each word hammered out by typewriter, as if constructed in a factory. The letter is a study in modesty, from the salutation to the somewhat world-weary declaration that age has confined him to his house. The placement of the words on the page, the texture of the paper, each element reveals the artist’s process, his own story. Look at the word ‘Dictated’ in the upper left corner, it's like a little sketch! I often feel that way in my own studio, I am at my best when I make the personal universal, allowing the viewer to find their own way into the work. Like Haden, the challenge for me is to create some alchemy between the personal and the general, the fixed and the open. Much like the letters of Agnes Martin, this small note opens up into something so much bigger.