Ed van der Elsken

Ed van der Elsken

Ed van der Elsken (1988)
Born (1925-03-10)10 March 1925
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Died 28 December 1990(1990-12-28) (aged 65)
Edam, Netherlands
Nationality Dutch
Known for Photography, film

Eduard "Ed" van der Elsken (10 March 1925 – 28 December 1990) was a Dutch photographer and filmmaker.

His imagery provides quotidian, intimate and autobiographic perspectives on the European zeitgeist[1] spanning the period of the Second World War into the nineteen-seventies in the realms of love, sex, art, music (particularly jazz), and alternative culture. He described his camera as ‘infatuated’, and said: "I’m not a journalist, an objective reporter, I’m a man with likes and dislikes".[2]

Early life

Ed van der Elsken was born on March 10, 1925 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In 1937, wanting to become a sculptor, he learned stone-cutting at Amsterdam's Van Tetterode Steenhouwerij. After completing preliminary studies at the Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs, the predecessor of the Rietveld Academy (dir. Mart Stam), he enrolled (in 1944) in the professional sculpture program, which he abandoned to escape Nazi forced labour. That year, after the Battle of Arnhem he was stationed in a mine-disposal unit where he was first shown Picture Post by British soldiers. Later, in 1947, he discovered American sensationalist photographer Weegee's Naked City. These encounters inspired his interest in photography and that year he took work in photo sales and attempted a correspondence course with the Fotovakschool in Den Haag, failing the final examination. He subsequently gained membership of the GKf[n 1] (photographer's section of the Dutch federation of practitioners of the applied arts).

Paris

At the suggestion of Dutch photographer Emmy Andriesse (1914–1953) he moved in 1950 to Paris.[3] He was employed in the darkrooms of the Magnum photography agency, printing for Henri Cartier-Bresson (who was impressed with his street photography), Robert Capa and Ernst Haas. There he met (and in 1954 married) fellow photographer Ata Kandó[n 2] (b. 1913 Budapest, Hungary), twelve years his senior, living with her three children among the 'ruffians' and bohemians[4] of Paris from 1950 to 1954.

Ata was a principled documentarian[5] whose pictures taken in the forests of the Amazon among the Piraoa and Yekuana tribes are her best known,[n 3] but her more poetic leanings, exemplified in her Droom in het Woud (Dream in the Wood, photographed 1954 in Switzerland and Austria, published 1957) must also have been an influence on Van der Elsken and his decision to move from newspaper reportage to aim to become a magazine photojournalist. Consequently, much of his work documented his own energetic and eccentric life experience[6] subjectively,[7] presaging the work of Larry Clark, Nan Goldin or Wolfgang Tillmans.[8] Thus his adopted family and their lives became the subjects of his photographs along with the people he met, during this Paris period, including Edward Steichen[n 4] [n 5] who used eighteen of the photographer's Saint-Germain-des-Prés images in a survey show (1953) Postwar European Photography and another in "The Family of Man", and probably Robert Frank (who found and introduced European photographers to Steichen[9]).

Another encounter was with Vali Myers (1930–2003) who became the haunting kohl-eyed heroine of his roman à clef photo-novel[10] Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint-Germain-des-Prés (1956; its English-language version was titled Love on the left bank).

Love on the Left Bank

"Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint-Germain-des-Prés" (Love on the left bank)[11][12] published in 1956, and designed by Dutch graphic designer, sculptor and typographer Jurriaan (William) Schrofer (1926–1990), is recognised as a particular contribution to the photobook; the beeldroman (photonovel), an essentially self-reflexive European genre.[13]

Van der Elsken initially put together a dummy of his text and images himself, but could not attract the interest of a publishing house. However, he succeeded with the renowned British magazine Picture Post, which devoted a four-part series in 1954 to the imagery entitled Why did Roberto leave Paris?. The editors felt it necessary to inform the reader that these were pictures not from a movie, but a "real-life story about people who do exist".[14]

The love interest in this unsophisticated tale is the Mexican boy Manuel (Picture Post used his real name, Robert). Manuel tells how in Paris he fell in love with the beautiful Ann (Vali Myers), who hangs out in bars in Saint Germain des Prés and dances wildly in the jazz cellars. However, it is unrequited love; for Ann, always surrounded by men, shows no interest in Manuel. After learning of her lesbian relationship with her girlfriend Geri, Manuel returns disappointed back to Mexico. At home, he receives a letter from Ann telling him that she and Geri have a venereal disease and that they suspect he also has it (Picture Post censored mention of venereal disease, substituting a 'sanitised' ending, against Van der Elsken's wishes,[15] in which Roberto goes back to Mexico because he missed his mother's cooking!). She comforts him with the thought that he really belongs to the "gang". Partly autobiographical and partly fictional (Van der Elsken was attracted to the extravagant Vali Myers[16]) a number of elements - such as Manuel's imprisonment - are drawn from accounts of the other bohemians.

The book was accepted for publication thanks to the innovative layout of designer Jurriaan Schrofer, who later also designed Van der Elsken's Bagara (1958).[n 6] Like his contemporary Van der Elsken he was a member of the Schrofer GKf, the Association of Practitioners of Applied Arts. Inspired by the medium of film Schrofer and Van der Elsken conceived a layout applying all sorts of cinematic elements, such as the flashback; the negative outcome of the love story is shown in the photo and the text on the first page, and what follows is a long flashback in which Manuel tells in first person, in the text and captions, of his experiences in Saint Germain des Prés. At the end of the book the first picture with the three protagonists reappears, with dramatic irony.[17] Combinations of close-ups, medium shots with wide or long are used in the layout as Schrofer combines large, medium-sized and small images and also square and 3:2 format pictures (Van der Elsken photographed with Nikon and Leica 35mm and a Rolleicord 6×6). Close-ups of the faces of Ann and Manuel were blown up to the breadth of a spread, while small photos are aligned in film strips like contact prints on a page. Photographs of the same act, like a boy and girl embracing each other in a bar, are repeated and interspersed. At the end of the book uninterrupted, mostly full-bleed, pictures are assembled into a dream sequence. Manuel, imprisoned for robbery, thinks only of Ann. In his first dream she poses, lost in thought, against a weathered wall, on which are the white graffiti 'rêve' (cropped from grève: 'Strike!'). On the following pages she appears to Manuel as pin-up and mysterious femme fatale, a narcissist who can love only her own reflection. Then there are five pages of self-portraits by Ann/Myers; surrealistic charcoal drawings of her emaciated, opium-addicted body and compulsive self-destruction. Manuel's nightmare reaches a dramatic climax in the photo where Ann, her pale eyes closed, self-poisoned, floats in a steamy mirror, followed by a black blank page.[15]

The book was the first of some twenty Van der Elsken publications. It quickly sold out in Europe and the UK, and its filmic qualities led to Van der Elsken's subsequent experiments with, and parallel career in, cinema.

Amongst its pages can be found the faces not only of artists but also of nascent Lettrist International[18] members and Situationists at the cafe Chez Moineau.[19][20] Twenty years later, the heroine, Vali Myers, re-appeared in his film Death in the Port Jackson Hotel (1972, 36 min. 16mm colour).

Amsterdam and international travel

Upon moving back to Amsterdam in 1955, he recorded members of the Dutch avant garde COBRA, including Karel Appel whom he later filmed (Karel Appel, componist korte versie, 1961, 4 min. 16 mm black & white). He separated from and divorced Ata Kando.

He then traveled extensively, to Bagara[21] 1957 (now in Central African Republic), and to Tokyo and Hong Kong in 1959 to 1960, with Gerda van der Veen (1935–2006) also a photographer, whom he married (25 September 1957). He filmed for Welkom In Het Leven, Lieve Kleine[22] the homebirth of their second child, Daan, in the old-fashioned, working-class Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam.[23] This is an early example of cinema production with a small shoulder-mounted camera synced with sound.[24] He continued in motion imagery his subjective stance[25] in which the camera operator interacts live from behind the camera with subject, obviating the need for the intrusion of an interviewer or presenter, and recording the immediate experience.[26] His style was immediately influential on the television of Hans Keller, Roelof Kiers and others.

Later life

From 1971 he lived with his third wife, photographer Anneke Hilhorst (1949 - ), in the country near Edam, where their son, John, was born. During this period he continued to travel and worked prodigiously between film and photography, producing a further 14 books and broadcasting more than 20 films with the collaboration and assistance of Hillhorst.

His last film was Bye (1990, 1 hour 48 min, video, 16 mm film, colour and black & white) a characteristically courageous autobiographical response[27] to his terminal prostate cancer.

He died on 28 December 1990 in Edam in the Netherlands.

Books

Films[28]

Notes

  1. ↑ The GKf is a photographers association that was founded in 1945 by Cas Oorthuys, Emmy Andriesse, Eva Besnyö and Carel Blazer. Other prominent photographers soon joined, all of who played an important role in the resistance movement during the war. What united these photographers was not only their artistic vision, but a mutual social engagement
  2. ↑ Ata Kando (born Budapest, 1913), the daughter of Hungarian parents, writer Margit G. Beke and Professor Imre Görög. She calls herself 'Ata' from her first name Etelka, and Kando is the name of her first husband, the painter Gyula Kando, with whom she left for Paris in 1932. Her commercial photographic career began as an assistant at Magnum immediately after the War. Later she photographed for Paris fashion houses and continued to do so after accompanying Van der Elsken to the Netherlands.
  3. ↑ see her illustrations in Soundmaking, magic and personality by Jacqueline van Ommeren. (English translation of Bevrijd de dommen van hun domheid). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1979. ISBN 90-6203-792-5
  4. ↑ Steichen appears in a photo Van der Elsken photo took in a Paris cafe in 1953 in Ed van der Elsken: Parijs Foto's—1950–1954. Edited with text by Anthon Beeke. Amsterdam, Bert Bakker, 1981.
  5. ↑ "After leaving Sweden, Steichen journeyed to Amsterdam. Following the success of the Stockholm meeting, similar gatherings were held in The Hague and in Amsterdam. Eva Besnyo (1910-2003), a Dutch photographer of Hungarian birth attended the meeting in Amsterdam. She remembers a large assembly at the studio of photographer Paul Huf (1924-2002). The meeting used the 'Stockholm protocol'; that is, photographers brought images, Steichen explained his plans for an exhibition on mankind and looked at photographs. Besides Besnyo, photographers present included Cas Oorthuys, Emmy Andriesse, Carl Blazer, Maria Austria, Ed van der Elsken, Henk Jonker and several others. Besnyo claims that most photographers did not dare bring too many of their photographs. However, photographer Ed van der Elsken (1925- 1990), whom she identified as the best of them all, brought practically his entire oeuvre. Steichen spent a large part of the evening looking at Van der Elsken's images, encouraging and advising the young photographer in his work. Elsken went on to enjoy a successful career; publishing several books of his work. Six Dutch photographers were included in The Family of Man exhibition, all of whom had attended the meeting at Paul Huf's studio." from Kristen Gresh (2005) The European roots of The Family of Man , History of Photography, 29:4, 331-343, DOI: 10.1080/03087298.2005.10442815
  6. ↑ He also designed Ata Kandó's and Violette Cornelius' untitled book of photographs of Hungarian refugees at the Austrian-Hungarian border fleeing the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956, produced for the benefit of Hungarian children.

References

  1. ↑ "A good deal has been said about [Documenta X's] ‘over-representation’ of the 1960s and 1970s, calling it nostalgic and anachronistic radicalism. Some, however, rejoiced in its unflinching rejection of the art and culture that had become dominant as globalization intensified [...] dX reached back to 1950 or even earlier, tracing and juxtaposing genealogies and individual interventions in photography, performance, installation, and videos, often cries-crossing genre boundaries. Interesting things happen to the work when a celebrated documentary photographer of the American Depression of the 1930s, Walker Evans, is seen in the same show as a contemporary Canadian photographer, Jeff Wall, who works with large, digitally constructed photographic narratives. The variety of work on display was striking: Helen Levitt, Aldo van Eyck, Maria Lassnig, Lygia Clark, Richard Hamilton, Marcel Broodthaers, Ed van der Elsken, Nancy Spero, Öyvind Fahlström, Garry Winogrand, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Robert Adams, Hélio Oiticica, James Coleman, Gordon Matta-Clark, Susanne Lafont, William Kentridge, Martin Walde, and many more." Miyoshi, M. 'Radical Art at Documenta X', in New Left Review I/228, March–April 1998. London: Verso.
  2. ↑ Aletti, Vince. Cafe noir (biography). [Article. Biography] Artforum International. v. 38 no7, Mar. 2000, pp. 98-103, 105-7.
  3. ↑ Koetzle, Hans-Michael & Adam, Hans-Christian, 1948- & Haus der Photographie (host institution.) (2011). Eyes on Paris: Paris im Fotobuch, 1890 bis heute. München Hirmer Hamburg Haus der Photographie, Deichtorhallen Hamburg
  4. ↑ "In Paris, this kind of urban roaming was characteristic of Left Bank bohemianism, where the art of drifting was a favorite way of cultivating that feeling of being 'apart together' that Huizinga described as characteristic of play. A vivid record of this time and place is Ed van der Elsken's book of photographs, which recorded some of the favorite haunts of the lettrists". Andreotti, Libero. "Play-Tactics of the "Internationale Situationniste". October, Vol. 9 (Winter, 2000), pp. 36-58: The MIT Press http://www.jstor.org/stable/779148
  5. ↑ Kandó, Ata; Sándor, Anna; Interview with Ata Kandó in Múlt és Jövő (Past and Future) Journal Issue 2, 2003, pages 72-75. Budapest: Past and Future Publishing House (Múlt és Jövő)
  6. ↑ "European[s]...like Ed van der Elsken and Christer Strömholm, who became not only observers of, but also participants in, the worlds they depicted." Charrier, P. (2010). The Making of a Hunter: Moriyama Daidō 1966–1972. History of Photography, 34(3), 268-290.
  7. ↑ Aletti, Vince. Cafe noir (biography). [Article. Biography] Artforum International. v. 38 no7, Mar. 2000, pp. 98-103, 105-7.
  8. ↑ Dziewior, Yilmaz. Yilmaz Dziewior talks with Annelie Lutgens (interview). Artforum International. v. 38 no 7, Mar. 2000, p. 104. An interview with Annelie Lutgens, curator of a comprehensive survey of the work of photographer Ed van der Elsken at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany, from March 2000.
  9. ↑ Kroes, R. Photographic Memories: Private Pictures, Public Images, and American History (2007) UPNE. ISBN 1-58465-593-3, p.137. "Frank, who helped Steichen get in touch with European photographers in preparation for the exhibition, may have known van der Elsken and introduced him..."
  10. ↑ Gierstberg, F. and Suermondt, R. (2012) The Dutch Photobook: A Thematic Selection from 1945 Onwards. Distributed Art Pub Incorporated, 2012. ISBN 1597112003
  11. ↑ Schwabsky, Barry. Ed van der Elsken. The Photographers' Gallery, London. [Article. Exhibition] On Paper. v. 6 no2, Nov./Dec. 2001, p. 86.
  12. ↑ The book of 101 books: Seminal photographic books of the 20th century. Andrew Roth (editor); essays by Richard Benson ... [et al.] ; catalogue by Vince Aletti, David Levi Strauss. New York: Roth Horowitz, 2001.
  13. ↑ "The story is not exactly sophisticated, and van der Elsken's pictures are not such pure examples of stream-of-consciousness as some of his other work, but the book remains an important and influential early example of a genre that has become increasingly popular in the late twentieth century—the diaristic mode." Parr, Martin; Badger, Gerry (2004), The photobook: A history. vol. 1, Phaidon, p. 245, ISBN 978-0-7148-4285-1
  14. ↑ Parr, Martin; Badger, Gerry (2004), The photobook: A history. vol. 1, Phaidon, p. 236 & 245, ISBN 978-0-7148-4285-1
  15. 1 2 Suermondt, R. (2000) FOTO, January/February 2000, pp 20-25
  16. ↑ "It is also known that van der Elsken was secretly in love with Vali Myers, and followed her for two years with his camera into the most intimate places. Except for a brief romance, it never came to a relationship. Indeed she inspired him as a muse and model to make the roman-a-clef in Saint Germain des Prés." Suermondt, R. (2000) FOTO, January/February 2000, pp 20-25
  17. ↑ "The climax of van der Elsken's narrative comes first, but we only realise this when we reach the last image, which is a reiteration of the book's opening. Cleverly, this symmetry also means that the volume makes some kind of sense when the pages are flicked from back to front, which is the way that many people naturally ‘read’ photobooks" Parr, Martin; Badger, Gerry (2004), The photobook: A history. vol. 1, Phaidon, p. 245, ISBN 978-0-7148-4285-1
  18. ↑ "A vivid record of this time and place is Ed van der Elsken's book..." Andreotti, Libero. "Play-Tactics of the "Internationale Situationniste". October, Vol. 9 (Winter, 2000), pp. 36-58: The MIT Press http://www.jstor.org/stable/779148
  19. ↑ “Before van der Elsken’s lens, the spirit is that of movement, interest, uncertainty. The girls and boys in Moineau’s seem oblivious of anybody but themselves; their peers seem to await a response, to offer themselves to a future they do mot expect to make, to a history already judging them as deviants, anomalies, curios…The people in Moineau’s seem to be having fun.” Marcus, Greil (1989), Lipstick traces: A secret history of the twentieth century, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-53581-7
  20. ↑ Including Eliane Papaï (1935–?) and Jean-Michel Mension (1934-2006) "(who) turned himself into a living poster and paraded through the streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés with cryptic slogans scrawled up and down his pants...A few days later, Mension and Fred [August Hommel, later a painter in New York] got drunk, streaked their hair with peroxide, and stumbled through the quarter slapping female shoppers and picking fights with businessmen." Ed van der Elsken's caption in the book
  21. ↑ Jan Vrijman (text), Bagara, Amsterdam (De Bezige Bij) n.d. [1958]. Idem French, English, South African eds.; German ed.: Das echte Afrika, Hamburg (Hoffmann und Campe)
  22. ↑ Welkom In Het Leven, Lieve Kleine (Welcome to life, dear little one) 1963, broadcast: January 15, 1964 and January 24, 1982 VPRO. Technical assistant: Gerda van der Elsken-van der Veen. 16 mm. black-white with sound: perfotape, partially post-synchronised. Running time: 36' 00" Repository: NFM
  23. ↑ "When Ed van der Elsken rages through Amsterdam's empty streets-those passages of film were shot in the very early morning and are run at high speed-the silence of the city is striking[...]The morphology of the city is filmed. 'This is the décor of my film. My hunting ground.'" from Jansen, A. C. M.: The atmosphere of a city centre. In: Area, 16 (1984), p.147-151. Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
  24. ↑ Pomerance, M. (2006). Cinema and modernity. Rutgers Univ Pr.
  25. ↑
    "Horak's selection of artists to exemplify the entangled relationship of film and photography is necessarily idiosyncratic. Rather than attempting an overview or comprehensive history, Horak opts for a close, circumscribed reading of the work of a few individuals who have traversed the two media throughout their careers. The artists selected, Chris Marker, Helmar Lerski, Paul Strand, László Moholy-Nagy, Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, Danny Lyon, and Ed van der Elsken, range from the renowned to the obscure, making the book at once invitingly familiar and provocatively broadening. The subjects of Making Images Move are defined as:
    . . photographers who ventured into the field of cinema without relinquishing their interest in photography Unlike many ... who only trained as photographers before moving more profitably into the field of moving pictures, these photographer/filmmakers have traveled across the borders of both media, learning from each mode of expression, wholly allegiant to neither"
    Martha P. Nochimson. 'Review of 'Making Images Move' By Jan-Christopher Horak'. in Film Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Summer, 1999), pp. 51-53. University of California Press
  26. ↑ Anderson, Steve [Reviewer]. Making images move; photographers and avant-garde cinema [Book Review]. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997. ISBN 1-56098-744-8. [Book Review] Film Quarterly. v. 52 no4, Summer 1999, p. 53-4.
  27. ↑ "At the end of his film van der Elsken says goodbye to the audience: looking, talking, comforting, and leaving a word of advice: 'I stop now, I am taking leave. I am almost there. Keep it up, all of you. All the best. Make an effort. Show who you are. Bye.' " quoted from Marga Altena & Eric Venbrux in Visual Anthropology special issue: Living Pictures, Reviving the Dead: Claiming Ritual and Identity through Posthumous Films. Published in cooperation with the Commission on Visual Anthropology. Volume 25, Issue 3, 2012, p.207
  28. ↑ Filmography: Mireille de Putter, in Bas Vroege, Anneke van der Elsken-Hilhorst, Flip Bool Voorwoord: Flip Bool (eds. curators), Leve ik! Ed van der Elsken- Foto & Film Essays Filmografie. Essays: Thomas Honickel, Jan-Christopher Horak, Johan van der Keuken en Roel Bentz van den Berg Design: Barends & Pijnappel Antwerpen. Edam, Paradox (1997) ISBN 90-802655-4-3
  29. ↑ Stoffers, M. (2012). Cycling as heritage: Representing the history of cycling in the Netherlands. The Journal of Transport History, 33(1), 92-114.

External links

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