17. The Coffee Aunt
The mobile woman
Picture information:
127cm x 92cm, oil on canvas
The story:
My grandfather's sister was my Aunt Marie from Rheinhausen. She was a proper aunt with a big back-combed perm and a wide smile. Always dressed in black as my uncle was deceased. My mother explained to me that the death of my uncle had been many years ago (30 years, in fact, during the war), but that my Aunt Marie had never ceased to mourn. I found her fun to be with and extremely likeable. The best thing about her was that she always covered the distance between Rheinhausen and Aachen in her own car - first a VW beetle and then a cream-coloured Opel "Blitz".
At the time I found it strange that such an aged lady (in my view) should drive such a sleek car. My Aunt Marie was well over 70 at the time and would admit to me from time to time that her trips to visit my grandmother did not always go off smoothly. Small accidents en route were unavoidable.
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In my painting the Coffee Aunt I record this subject matter very personally, and hence have transformed the snail shell into a coffee pot. I have positioned a car door handle on the side of the pot to give an effect of false placement. The combination of coffee aunt and car flows into the foreground, ending in a point that has almost broken off. A symbol of the unavoidable accidents of the female driver.
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