Brief aan Mien Cambier van Nooten

This letter to Mien Cambier van Nooten was written by Dick Ket in 1938, using ink on paper. It's a dense, intimate composition, full of swirling lines and looping forms. Ket’s handwriting is so distinctive, it’s almost like a drawing. The letters are tightly packed, forming a dense, textured surface that is visually striking. You can almost feel the pressure of the pen on the page, the deliberate, yet spontaneous movements that created each character. It's beautiful, but difficult to read, as if Ket is guarding his privacy even as he communicates. The dark blue of the ink contrasts with the pale paper, creating a stark, graphic effect. It reminds me of Cy Twombly’s scrawling, poetic mark-making, but with a more restrained, intimate quality. Both artists transform the act of writing into a deeply personal form of expression. Like art itself, it’s about embracing the messy, the ambiguous, and the endlessly fascinating possibilities of communication.