There are few known portraits of Wilhelmina Drucker. As for the ones we do possess, we often don’t know when they were taken, by whom, or at which occasion. This applies equally to the portraits that were published in Drucker’s own days and the original prints that have survived. Posthumous publications often fail to provide complete or accurate descriptions up to the point of curious cases of mistaken identity, such as the one involving Annette Versluys-Poelman in 1919. In addition, curators of those public collections that contain the portraits have often resorted to wild guesses in their descriptions.
The same goes for group portraits where Drucker is (supposedly) present. Usually we remain in the dark about the occasion, or the maker, or even whom we should identify as Drucker or those present. Again, errors and omissions abound – strangers are mistaken for Drucker; her presence is assumed while she is absent, like in a 1913 photograph of the board of the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (Association for Women’s Suffrage, VVK); or her presence simply goes unnoticed.
Photographs are invaluable sources to find out more about Drucker as a person and her life-story, as long as we take a serious look and interpret what we are looking at. We therefore intend to collect every traceable (group) portrait of Drucker for further close-examination.