Zelfportret: B-1-1, februari 1942 1942

Curator: This pencil drawing is Cor van Teeseling’s “Self-Portrait: B-1-1, February 1942," created in, well, 1942. It resides here at the Rijksmuseum. What’s your first take on this intriguing piece? Editor: Spare. Austere, almost. Those fluid lines shaping the face have an unsettling, questioning gaze. A stark vulnerability hits me. It feels deeply personal, like peeking into a raw moment of self-reflection. Curator: Precisely. Teeseling’s use of line is quite revealing here. Notice the economy of detail—a few strokes defining the brow, the delicate shading around the eyes. He distills his essence down to a handful of carefully chosen lines. There's a sense of formal exploration too, playing with the conventions of portraiture. Editor: It is indeed a portrait boiled down to the barest of elements. Almost like a caricature but without losing any of the sensitivity. It dances between presence and absence. It whispers of identity while questioning its very construction. Is that too poetic? Curator: Not at all! This aligns perfectly with Teeseling's modernist approach. This piece reflects anxieties of its time – the search for new ways of representing the self amidst a fractured world. It seems as if he has trapped the inner self with pencil in the form of this human being on paper. Editor: The gaze does burrow into you, doesn't it? Wonder what that moment was like, sitting, drawing oneself under such circumstances. Almost seems brave and terrifying to witness that truth. The lack of ornamentation allows a pure emotional clarity to flood in. Curator: A clarity sharpened by constraint, no doubt. Given the date, 1942, one can speculate about the psychological weight. The artist has left traces in a direct manner. These pencil strokes become time-travel machines back to this moment. Editor: Right? Looking into those eyes feels akin to confronting my own vulnerabilities, too. Like staring at some sort of reflection. Something in its stark simplicity really lingers long after. Thanks for sharing. Curator: And thank you for bringing that empathetic perspective. I find it always enriching when cultural and historical context engages in conversations about human nature with this deeply honest sketch.