15351 („Mit hoffnungsvollen Füss …“) 1931

John Elsas made this collage, 15351, sometime around 1931, out of paper and I think some gouache. It’s a small, unassuming piece, but the longer you look at it, the more it pulls you in. The figure, a little girl perhaps, is pieced together from different scraps. I love how the pattern of the dress clashes with the stripes of her headscarf. It’s like a conversation between different realities. That headscarf has this jaunty angle, cutting across her face, and it reminds me of Matisse and his cut-outs, a similar play with shape and form and a real sense of freedom. There is a naivety in the making of this piece, the work of a folk artist, but that adds to its charm. The green legs suggest an earthy groundedness, and the writing below is just beautiful, a real sense of hope. It’s like the work of outsider artist, Adolf Wölfli, who like Elsas created his own visual language.