Malay Woman with her Children 1921

Svend Rathsack’s sculpture depicts a Malay woman surrounded by her children. It's made of plaster, which gives it a kind of porous, grainy texture. The woman and her children look so solid and present, yet the figures seem to emerge out of the material as if they are not quite fully formed. It’s an interesting contrast, and I think the sculptor, Rathsack, was interested in exploring that tension. I wonder what Rathsack was thinking as he worked the plaster, adding and subtracting, searching for the forms within the material? I feel the weight of the mother’s shawl and the children clinging to her. They're captured in this single moment, these figures are both monumental and intimate. There's a quiet dignity in this sculpture. It reminds me of Käthe Kollwitz's sculptures of mothers and children, or even some of the early Renaissance Madonnas. Artists are in an ongoing conversation, you know, inspiring each other across time.