Ed van der Elsken

Ed van der Elsken 1925-1990, a photojournalist born in Amsterdam.
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 documented his own energetic and eccentric life experience, presaging the work of Larry Clark, Nan Goldin or Wolfgang Tillmans. 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". Another encounter was with Vali Myers who became the haunting kohl-eyed heroine of "Love on the left bank" (Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint-Germain-des-Prés) published in 1956, the first of some twenty publications. Twenty years later she 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 [1], including Karel Appel whom he later filmed (Karel Appel, componist korte versie, 1961, 4 min. 16 mm black & white). He then travelled extensively, to Bagara1957 (now in Democratic Republic of Congo), and to Tokyo and Hong Kong in 1959 to 1960, with Gerda van der Veen, 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).
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 characteristic response to his terminal prostate cancer.

Books:

Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint Germain des Prés (1956)
Bagara (1958)
Jazz (1959)
Dans Theater (1960)
Nederlands 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 in een sloot ergens bij Edam (1977)
Hallo! Een nieuwe Ed van der Elsken (1978)
Amsterdam! Oude foto's 1947-1970 (1979)
Avonturen op het land (1980)
Parijs! Foto's 1950-1954 (1981)
Amsterdam? (1984)
'Are you famous?' (1985)
Elsken: PARIS 1950-1954 (1985)
L'Amour à Saint Germain des Près (1986)
Jong Nederland 'Adorabele rotzakken' 1947-1987 (1987)
Elsken: JAPAN 1959-1960 Nippon data (1987)
De ontdekking van Japan (1988)
JAZZ Ed van der Elsken 1955-1959.61 (1988)
Natlab (1989)
Africa Ed van der Elsken 1957 (1990)
ONCE UPON A TIME (1991)
Once upon a time (1993)
l'Amour! (1995)
Hong Kong the way it was (1997)
Leve ik! Ed van der Elsken Foto & Film Essays Filmografie (1997)
Nippon data & After Ed van der Elsken (2000)
Fotografie + Film 1949-1990 Ed van der Elsken Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2000)
Eye love you Ed van der Elsken Fotografies + films (1949-1990) (2001)
55 Ed van der Elsken (2002)
My Amsterdam Ed van der Elsken (2005)

References

• Official Website of Ed van der Elsken