The text below is automatically translated using Microsoft Azure Translator
Nellie: The image represents an early memory. The girl is two-and-a-half when she is taken to see her father for the last time. She's going up a big white marble staircase. When her father sees her, he wants to pick her up, but he's too weak for that. He caresses her and gives her: 'my big girl, be good', shortly afterwards he dies. The warmth of this moment is in stark contrast to what was to come next, a youth without a single nice word. She took this moment with her father all her life, her own children would get all the love she could give! This memory took place in Ukraine. It was a time of danger and menace, her father was also often unjustly imprisoned. Once in the Netherlands, she learned the language in 1963 by reading the Donald Duck. The Dutch flag is therefore incorporated into this portrait.
Rosemarijn
