Staande man met hoed en daarachter een gezelschap zittende mannen c. 1936 - 1940

Henk Henriët made this drawing of a standing man with a hat and a group of sitting men behind him using graphite on paper. It’s a loose sketch, quick and energetic. I can almost feel the artist’s hand moving across the page, capturing a fleeting moment. The marks are light and suggestive, creating a sense of movement and vitality. I wonder what Henriët was thinking as he made this? Maybe he was sitting in a smoky bar himself, quickly trying to capture the scene before it disappeared. Or perhaps he was working from memory, trying to recreate a feeling or a mood. It’s interesting to see the different ways the figures are rendered, some with more detail than others, as if the artist was focusing on certain characters or elements of the scene. It reminds me a little of Daumier's sketches of Parisian life, that same sense of capturing the everyday with a few deft strokes. Artists are always in conversation, aren't they, echoing and responding to each other across time and space?