Blad 63 uit Stamboek van de leerlingen der Koloniale School voor Meisjes en Vrouwen te 's-Gravenhage deel II (1930-1949) Possibly 1935

This anonymously made register from the Colonial School for Girls and Women in The Hague from between 1930 and 1949, is not something you often see in a museum, is it? It is like a social painting, one where the marks and gestures are not abstract forms but the everyday details of real people’s lives. What strikes me is the contrast between the formal layout of the book and the unruly character of the handwritten entries, signatures, and photographs. Each person listed has their place on the page, carefully recorded in ink, yet each entry seems to resist this order, teeming with life and individuality. The varying handwriting styles, the clipped photographs showing faces and figures, all speak to the unique identities contained within this institutional framework. It reminds me a little of a Paul Klee painting, where geometric abstraction is always tempered by a playful, human touch. Like Klee, this register embraces the tension between structure and spontaneity, inviting us to see the beauty in both.