Zeven portretten van Herman Besselaar en kennissen in een tuin en in een bos c. 1930

Curator: These gelatin-silver prints collectively titled "Zeven portretten van Herman Besselaar en kennissen in een tuin en in een bos", which translates to "Seven portraits of Herman Besselaar and acquaintances in a garden and in a forest," were captured around 1930 by Berti Hoppe. There are seven separate photographs laid out, each showing the sitter or sitters surrounded by nature. Editor: My first thought is of how intensely these little tableaus portray intimate lives within constructed, almost theatrical, natural settings. There’s such formality mixed with playfulness. Look how deliberately staged each group is, yet the subjects, particularly the children, have a casual freedom about them. Curator: The composition definitely enhances that impression. Hoppe seems conscious of inherited visual grammars – pastoral scenes, perhaps – yet subtly subverts the associated visual motifs with her use of cropping, a tight focus, and that monochrome palette that lends the whole piece a dreamlike distance from the present day. I keep returning to the one photograph where several men stand amongst the towering trees and a little boy sits at their feet. It is almost biblical in its placement of humanity amongst nature’s grand cathedral. Editor: Absolutely, but within this sense of staged solemnity I see something more complex too. In a politically tumultuous time period in Europe, finding peace within natural settings could become an act of resilience, and this form of visual storytelling serves as a gentle political narrative, prioritizing rest. Curator: It highlights a kind of return to Eden before more turbulent days, and one can find a certain longing embedded in each scene of verdant enclosure. It speaks of a fundamental yearning for innocence but rendered with such awareness that its message gains power. Editor: Agreed. Ultimately, for me, these scenes function almost as archival resistance—softly celebrating human life against a backdrop of increasingly fraught political discourse. What begins as a quiet photo album speaks volumes on human relationships, childhood and political unrest. Curator: Seeing them this way casts a new light on these quiet moments. Thank you for drawing my attention to this work’s subtle layers of historical and social discourse.