Holland: The Visit (Der Besuch)

Max Pollak

Max Pollak was born in Czechoslavakia and raised in Vienna. A printmaker with a long, productive career his intaglios, which included genre, land and cityscapes, and portraits from throughout Europe, the United States and Latin America.

While traveling in Europe Pollak had the opportunity to study the works of the old masters firsthand, including Rembrandt, to whom he pays tribute with this dark interior scene that uses only the ambient light from the window to illuminate the composition. The elements within the room emerge slowly out of the dark.

Three women gather around a kitchen table, a visit between old friends perhaps as a young woman stands by. She and the woman at the table wear costumes from the region of Volendam in Northern Holland near Amsterdam.