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==Biography==
==Biography==
Ed van der Elsken was born on 10 March 1925 in [[Amsterdam]] in the [[Netherlands]]
Ed van der Elsken was born on 10 March 1925 in [[Amsterdam]] in the [[Netherlands]].


He lived with fellow photographer Ata Kandó<ref>Ata Kando (born Budapest, 1913) is the daughter of Hungarian parents, the 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 with being assistant at the Magnum photo agency immediately after the War. Later she photographed for Paris fashion houses and continued to do so after accompanying Ed van der Elsken to the Netherlands.</ref> (b. 1913 Budapest, Hungary) and her three children amongst the 'ruffians' and bohemians<ref>"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
He lived with fellow photographer Ata Kandó<ref>Ata Kando (born Budapest, 1913) is the daughter of Hungarian parents, the 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 with being assistant at the Magnum photo agency immediately after the War. Later she photographed for Paris fashion houses and continued to do so after accompanying Ed van der Elsken to the Netherlands.</ref> (b. 1913 Budapest, Hungary) and her three children amongst the 'ruffians' and bohemians<ref>"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
Line 34: Line 34:
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, Laszlo 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:
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, Laszlo 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:
<blockquote>. . 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
<blockquote>. . 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"</blockquote></blockquote>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</ref> in which the camera operator is no longer invisible, but interacted with subject <ref>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.</ref> This was influential on the television of Hans Keller [http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Keller|Hans Keller] and [[Roelof Kiers]].
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"</blockquote></blockquote>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</ref> in which the camera operator is no longer invisible, but interacted with subject <ref>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.</ref>. This was influential on the television of Hans Keller [http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Keller|Hans Keller] and [[Roelof Kiers]].


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

Revision as of 14:20, 7 January 2010

Ed van der Elsken
NationalityDutch
Known forPhotography, film

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[1] (b. 1913 Budapest, Hungary) and her three children amongst the 'ruffians' and bohemians[2] of Paris from 1950 to 1954. Ata was a principled documentarian[3] whose pictures taken in the forests of the Amazon among the Piraoa and Yekuana tribes are her best known[4], 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[5] documented his own energetic and eccentric life experience, presaging the work of Larry Clark, Nan Goldin or Wolfgang Tillmans[6]. 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[7]). 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)[8][9], 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).

Upon moving back to Amsterdam in 1954, 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 then traveled 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 this, he filmed the birth of their second child, Daan, in the old-fashioned, working-class Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam[10] (Welkom in het leven, lieve kleine, 1963, 36 min. 16 mm black & white). This is an early example of cinema production with a small shoulder-mounted camera synced with sound. He continued in motion imagery his subjective stance[11] in which the camera operator is no longer invisible, but interacted with subject [12]. This was influential on the television of Hans Keller Keller and Roelof Kiers.

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

His imagery provides quotidian, intimate and autobiographic perspectives on the European zeitgeist[13] 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

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 Dorus (1981)
  • Een fotograaf filmt Amsterdam (1982)
  • Bye (1990)

References

  1. ^ Ata Kando (born Budapest, 1913) is the daughter of Hungarian parents, the 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 with being assistant at the Magnum photo agency immediately after the War. Later she photographed for Paris fashion houses and continued to do so after accompanying Ed van der Elsken to the Netherlands.
  2. ^ "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. 91 (Winter, 2000), pp. 36-58 : The MIT Press
  3. ^ 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)
  4. ^ 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 9062037925
  5. ^ Aletti, Vince. Cafe noir (biography). [Article. Biography] Artforum International. v. 38 no7, Mar. 2000, p. 98-103, 105-7.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ 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..."
  8. ^ Schwabsky, Barry. Ed Van der Elsken. The Photographers' Gallery, London. [Article. Exhibition] On Paper. v. 6 no2, Nov./Dec. 2001, p. 86.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ "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 hnting ground.'" from Jansen, A. C. M.: The atmosphere of a city centre. In: Area, 16 (1984), S. 147-151. : Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
  11. ^

    "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, Laszlo 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
  12. ^ 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.
  13. ^ "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 Levirt, Aldo van Eyck, Maria Lassnig, Lygia Clark, Richard Hamilton, Marcel Broodthaers, Ed van der Elsken, Nancy Spero, Öyvind Fahlström, Garry Winogrand, Michaelangelo 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.
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