Vrouw en drie meisjes in een gang c. 1925 - 1935

Adrie Vürtheim made this drawing, "Vrouw en drie meisjes in een gang" with ink on paper. I love the way Vürtheim is thinking through this image, using the texture and weight of the ink to find this scene with a mother and her three daughters, the youngest of whom points to something beyond the frame. It’s like the artist is thinking aloud. I really enjoy the sketchy and energetic line-work that both defines the figures and flattens them against the picture plane. Everything’s described economically, with a kind of shorthand. But then there are these moments, like the mother's ornate shawl, rendered with so many rapid marks the image nearly dissolves into abstraction. The scene feels almost incomplete, and in this way, Vürtheim reminds me of other artists who embrace an ambiguous process, such as Henri Matisse, or even Cy Twombly. All of them remind us that art is an ongoing conversation, where the meaning lies not just in what's depicted but in the way it's explored.