Footnotes

These two drawings of interiors were executed fifty-two years apart, the first in 1939 when the artist was possibly still a student at the Royal College of Art with access to the Victoria and Albert Museum library. This portrayal of the layout and ambience in the library is rendered with almost draughtsman-like accuracy. Heads bent in concentration, the loose forms of figures hunch over their work, their sense of purpose emphasised by the formal lines of all the familiar paraphernalia of books, shelving, lamps and tables, etched in muted hues. This affinity with her immediate environment was demonstrated throughout her artistic life.
The second drawing is possibly from the 1990s when her physical mobility became increasingly impaired—the drawing includes her two feet as she lies in her bed. However, the forceful marks across the paper demonstrate that her use of line has not been affected. All the objects which are now part of her constrained circumstances are logged with fluent mark making, from the clock on the wall to the walker beside her bed. The two drawings seen together do not display a great disparity in the manner Anna Molka Ahmed records the world around her. It remains an academic exploration of space and the objects that inhabit it.