Ed van der Elsken

Infobox Artist
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name = Ed van der Elsken


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birthdate = birth date|1925|03|10|df=yes
location = Amsterdam, Netherlands
deathdate = death date and age|1990|12|28|1925|03|10|df=yes
deathplace = Edam, Netherlands
nationality = Dutch
field = Photography, film
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Ed van der Elsken (10 March 1925 – 28 December 1990) was a Dutch photographer and film maker.

Biography

Ed van der Elsken was born on 10 March 1925 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands

He lived with fellow photographer Ata Kandó (b. 1913 Budapest, Hungary) and her three children amongst the 'ruffians' and bohemians of Paris from 1950 to 1954. Ata was a principled documentarian whose pictures taken in the forests of the Amazon among the Piraoa and Yekuana tribes are her best known, but her more poetic leanings, exemplified in her later "Droom in het Woud" (Dream in the Wood 1957) must also have been an influence on van der Elsken. Much of his work subjectively [Aletti, Vince. Cafe noir (biography). [Article. Biography] Artforum International. v. 38 no7, Mar. 2000, p. 98-103, 105-7.] documented his own energetic and eccentric life experience, presaging the work of Larry Clark, Nan Goldin or Wolfgang Tillmans [Dziewior, Yilmaz. Yilmaz Dziewior talks with Annelie Lutgens (interview). Artforum International. v. 38 no7, 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. ] . His adopted family and their lives became the subjects of his photographs along with the people he met including, during this Paris period, Edward Steichen who used many of the photographer's images in a survey of Postwar European Photography and in "The Family of Man", and probably Robert Frank (who found and introduced European photographers to Steichen [ Kroes, R. Photographic Memories: Private Pictures, Public Images, and American History (2007) UPNE. ISBN:1584655933, 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..."] ). Another encounter was with Vali Myers (1930-2003) who became the haunting kohl-eyed heroine of his "roman à clef" "Love on the left bank" (Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint-Germain-des-Prés) [Schwabsky, Barry. Ed Van der Elsken. The Photographers' Gallery, London. [Article. Exhibition] On Paper. v. 6 no2, Nov./Dec. 2001, p. 86.] [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.] , designed by Dutch graphic designer, sculptor, typographer Jurriaan (William) Schrofer (1926-1990). It was the first of some twenty van der Elsken publications, and quickly sold out. Twenty years later Myers appears in his film "Death in the Port Jackson Hotel" (1972, 36 min. 16 mm colour).

Moving back to Amsterdam in 1954 he records 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 then travelled extensively, to Bagara 1957 (now in Democratic Republic of Congo), and to Tokyo and Hong Kong in 1959 to 1960, with Gerda van der Veen (1935-2006), his second wife (also a photographer). Shortly after he records on film the birth of their second child Daan in the old-fashioned working-class Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam (Welkom in het leven, lieve kleine, 1963, 36 min. 16 mm black & white). This was an early example of cinema production with a small shoulder-mounted camera synced with sound. He continued in motion imagery his subjective stance in which the camera operator is no longer invisible, but interacts with subject [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.] This was influential on the television of Hans Keller [http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Keller|Hans Keller] and Roelof Kiers.

From 1971, he lives in the country near Edam, with his wife, photographer Anneke Hilhorst (1949 - ), where their son, John, is born.

His imagery provides quotidian, intimate and autobiographic perspectives on the European zeitgeist between the Second World War and the seventies in the realms of art, music (particularly jazz), and cafe culture. His last film was Bye (1990, 1 hour 48 min, video, 16 mm film, colour and black & white) a characteristically courageous response to his terminal prostate cancer.

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

Books

*"Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint Germain des Prés" (1956)
*"Bagara" (1958)
*"Jazz" (1959)
*"Dans Theater" (1960)
*"de Jong & van Dam NV 1912-1962" (1962)
*"Sweet life" (1966)
*"Wereldreis in foto's vier delen" (1967-1968)
*"Eye Love you" (1977)
*"Zomaar een sloot ergens bij Edam" (1977)
*"Hallo!" (1978)
*"Amsterdam! Oude foto's 1947-1970" (1979)
*"Avonturen op het land" (1980)
*"Parijs! Foto's 1950-1954" (1981)
*"Are you famous?" (1985)
*"San-jeruman-de-pure no kol" (1986)
*"Jong Nederland 'Adorabele rotzakken"' (1987)
*"Japan 1959-1960" (1987)
*"De ontdekking van Japan" (1988)
*"Natlab" (1989)
*"Once upon a time" (1991)

Films

*"Handen" (1960)
*"Karel Appel, componist" (1961)
*"Dylaby" (1962)
*"Lieverdjes" (1963)
*"Welkom in het leven, lieve kleine" (1963)
*"Fietsen" (1965)
*"Hee poppelepee" (1967)
*"Het Waterlooplein verdwijnt" (1967)
*"De verliefde camera" (1971)
*"Death in the Port Jackson Hotel" (1972)
*"Avonturen op het land" (1980)
*"Daan Doris" (1981)
*"Een fotograaf filmt Amsterdam" (1982)
*"Bye" (1990)

References