6 museomag   03 ‘ 2020 
INTELLIGENCE, POWER AND BEAUTY 
IN CONVERSATION WITH MARTA WEISS AND MAJA NEERMAN, TWO TALENTED 
WOMEN POSING FOR THE SERIES “ARTFULLY DRESSED” BY CARLA VAN DE PUTTELAAR 
In the frame of our temporary exhibition 
Brushed by Light, we interviewed two “promi- 
nent and promising women in the art world” who 
posed for Carla van de Puttelaar‘s Series Artfully 
Dressed: Women in the Art World. 
Three questions to… Marta Weiss, Senior Curator 
of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert 
Museum, London: 
In the catalogue Artfully Dressed: Women in the Art 
World, you remember the session 
as “both surprisingly collabora- 
tive and surprisingly tiring”. In 
which sense? 
It was collaborative in that Carla 
tookmy suggestion about trying 
some photographs with my daugh- 
ter Penelope. Also, early in the 
session Carla asked me to hold an 
orchid for several shots and as I 
became more comfortable, I was 
able to tell her that I don’t actual- 
ly like orchids very much. On the 
other hand, it was physically tiring 
to pose for the camera, especially 
holding Penelope, who felt very he- 
avy after a while. 
Your daughter is staring at the 
camera and you are looking away. 
What inspires you this composi- 
tion? 
I love that Penelope is looking at 
the camera but I am looking away 
from her. I think it saves the pic- 
ture from being overly sentimental. 
The photograph depicts the close 
physical contact between mother 
and child – reinforced by the way 
Penelope is holding onto the fabric 
of my dress – but the fact that I’m 
looking away suggests that I have 
thoughts and an identity of my own 
that are not necessarily connected 
with motherhood. 
Did Carla give you any instruc- 
tions for the sitting? Could you 
choose the dress? 
The arrangement of looks wasn’t planned (unless Carla 
tells you otherwise!). I had been posing for quite a whi- 
le by the time Penelope joined me, so I think I was just 
trying to maintain a kind of neutral expression I had 
been using for most of the session. The dress was my 
mother’s and when I mentioned it to her after sitting 
for Carla, my mother found a photograph of herself 
wearing it on New Year’s Eve 1970, holding my older 
sister, who was then a 6-week-old baby. It was a lovely 
coincidence that gives the photograph multigeneratio- 
nal significance for my family. 
Marta Weiss with her daughter, Penelope (2018) 
© 
carla 
van 
de 
puttelaar