Stående, hatteklædt klovn med store handsker, vendt mod venstre. 1908 - 1909

Othon Friesz made this drawing of a clown, with hat and big gloves, with what looks like charcoal on graph paper. It’s all about gesture. You can almost feel him moving his hand, trying to find the right, simple lines to capture this figure. I wonder what Friesz was thinking about when he made this? Was he thinking about Daumier, and his graphic, kind of social realist studies? Or was he just playing around? Those big gloves, they’re like abstract shapes that stand for hands. The clown is turned to the left but looks as though he’s waving. He is almost floating on the grid, like a ghost or spirit emerging from a dream. It's just a few lines, but they give you everything. Artists are always in conversation with one another, aren’t they? They inspire our creativity across time. It's like a form of embodied expression which embraces ambiguity and allows for multiple interpretations.