Éva Besnyő

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Maviye Karaman Ince and Eva Besnyö (1985)

Éva Marianna Besnyő (born  April 29, 1910 in Budapest ; †  December 12, 2003 in Laren , Netherlands ) was a Hungarian-Dutch photographer . Alongside Emmy Andriesse , Cas Oorthuys and Carel Blazer , she is considered a representative of the Nieuwe Fotografie (“New Photography”) trend .

Life

Éva Besnyő grew up as one of three sisters in a liberal Jewish family in Budapest. She lived in the same house as Endre Friedmann, who later, inspired by Éva Besnyő, turned to photography and called himself Robert Capa . At the age of eighteen, she trained for two years in the field of architecture and portrait photography with the Budapest photographer József Pécsi (1889–1956). He gave Besnyő the advice to go to Berlin after her training, which she followed in 1930.

Until the beginning of 1931 Éva Besnyő worked in the laboratory of the advertising photographer René Ahrlé , then under the press photographer Peter Weller , who sold many of her photos under his own name to the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung , among others .

Portrait van Eva Besnyö op het strand (Peter Weller, Berlin, 1931)

At the end of 1931 she rented her own studio in Nachodstrasse in Berlin-Wilmersdorf , but continued to work on journalistic reports that she offered through the Neofot agency . During her time in Berlin, she continued to cultivate her close friendship with the photographer and designer György Kepes (1906–2001), who was in frequent contact with László Moholy-Nagy , and with Robert Capa, who was now living as a student in Berlin.

Against the background of growing anti-Semitism in the German Reich , Éva Besnyő emigrated to Amsterdam . In 1933 she married the Dutch filmmaker John Fernhout ( Johannes Hendrik Fernhout / John Ferno ; 1913–1987), the son of the painter Charley Toorop . In Amsterdam she made contacts with the graphic artist Paul Schuitema , the photographer Carel Blazer and the architect Alexander Bodon .

In 1937 she was, together with Cas Oorthuys and Carel Blazer, on the committee for the international exhibition "foto '37", which took place in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam . In preparation for the exhibition, she visited Henri Cartier-Bresson , Brassaï and Florence Henri in Paris.

Grave of Eva Besnyös

At the end of the 1930s she was a much appreciated and busy photographer in the Netherlands. That changed suddenly in 1940 with the occupation of the Netherlands by the Germans. Besnyő was banned from working and traveling. She went into hiding between 1942 and 1944, while her husband was in China and the United States at the time. Besnyő worked during the German occupation of the Netherlands, together with her later second husband, for the Dutch resistance . She made passport photos for forged papers. She also tried to get her "Aryanization", which she obtained with the help of a forged birth certificate that her mother procured for her.

In 1945 the Besnyő / Fernhout couple divorced. In 1946 she married the Dutch graphic artist Wim Brusse , with whom she had a son Bertus (1945) and a daughter Yara (1948). Now the photographic work had to take a back seat at times.

By concentrating on photo reports , Éva Besnyő became a well-known photographer of the Dutch women's movement in the 1970s .

In 1987 her book With Different Eyes was published in Berlin . Berlin 1930–1932 published. It contains photographs from Besnyő's time in Berlin. In 1990 Éva Besnyő's work was presented in a solo exhibition in the Hidden Museum in Berlin. In 1999 she received the Dr. Erich Salomon Prize for humanistic photojournalism from the German Society for Photography .

plant

Besnyő began with recordings from the slum Kiserdő in Budapest; other images such as an unemployed man in the Jordaan , in front of the stock exchange , Amsterdam 1932 or the pawn shop M. Cosman are also inspired by social criticism, but the imagery is more poetic than combative. After Miklós Horthy came to power, “art and photography were supposed to pay homage to Magyar nationalism” (Besnyő), which is why she emigrated to Berlin, like many colleagues. Back then, the city was seen as a metropolis of upheaval and the joy of experimentation: “I came to Berlin and the light went on!” Says Besnyő. She discovered films of the Russian avant-garde , experienced the theater of Erwin Piscator and attended the Marxist Workers' School (MASCH). For her photo technique, this meant: “At the beginning I was taking photos of people. Sometimes asleep; but they were always subordinate to the formal principle and had no meaning as individuals. ”At that time, her work is characterized by clear lines, finely designed structures, unusual points of view, steep views, rich gradations of light and gray values. The bold diagonals express their new way of seeing: “In Hungary the diagonal was in the air, in Berlin it went right through me.” The viewer has to become active to perceive, since reality is not directly accessible: “To gain new views from the familiar. "

Besnyő photographed almost deserted streets, with a surreal effect ( Starnberger Straße ), she showed people from behind ( coke workers or two girls, seeking protection ). She understood the city almost cubist ( German Stadium ); Plane and lines now dominated their work, as with the constructivists . As the National Socialists gained strength , she recognized the principle of force being used: “On the street all the brown shirts were with clubs ... There were clashes in left-wing cafes, where they beat people and the whole cafe short and sweet. It was a violent atmosphere. ”When the agency asked her to hide her name because it sounded too Jewish, she left the city and drove to Amsterdam. There she had her first solo exhibition in 1934. She became a member of the "Association of Artists for the Defense of Cultural Rights". This federation organized an exhibition "Olympics under the dictatorship" in which she participated. She played a leading role in organizing the “foto '37” exhibition. During this time she lived a lot from commissioned work, e.g. B. in architectural photography, with which she had great success between 1935 and 1939. Later she didn't like the fact that she “always had to take in architecture without people”.

After the Germans had bombed Rotterdam, she photographed scenes of ruins as a landscape of ruins, the visual effect of which overwhelmed her at the time; In retrospect, she distanced herself from Cyclos, even rated him as the "death knell of my aesthetic photography."

"Impressive portraits" were created in the 1950s and 1960s.

In the 1970s she documented the actions of the Dollen Mina : "There was ... the topic much more important than the form." Now she depicts hundreds of everyday situations that show spatial or atmospheric tensions. She received the Annie Romein Prize from Opzij magazine for "her special contribution to the writing of history ... the feminist movement ... which could not have been expressed in words."

Besnyő's work thus largely reflects the merging of the artistic profession and their participation in public life.

  • Postage Stamps (1947)

  • Besnyo1947-4.png
  • Besnyo1947-7.png
  • Besnyo1947-10.png
  • Besnyo1947-20.png

Exhibitions (selection)

literature

  • Hannelore Fischer for the Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne (ed.): Eva Besnyö - photographer. Budapest, Berlin, Amsterdam. Exhibition catalog with contributions by Marion Beckers and Elisabeth Moortgat. Wienand, Cologne 2018, ISBN 978-3-86832-458-7 .
  • Marion Beckers, Elisabeth Moortgat (ed.): Eva Besnyö 1910–2003. Budapest - Berlin - Amsterdam. Exhibition catalog Berlin 2011/2012. Hirmer, Munich 2011, ISBN 3-7774-4141-4 .
  • Tineke de Ruiter: Eva Besnyö. Voetnoot, Amsterdam 2007, ISBN 978-90-78068-01-3 .
  • Willem Diepraam: Eva Besnyö. Focus Uitgeverij, Amsterdam 1999, ISBN 978-90-72216-94-6 .
  • Hennie van der Zande: Eva Besnyö - 'n halve eeuw work. Feminist Uitgeverij Sara, Amsterdam 1982, ISBN 90-6328-073-4 .
  • Christiana Puschak: Éva Besnyő. A gifted photographer and politically committed contemporary. In: Zs. Zwischenwelt. Literature, resistance, exile. Ed. Theodor Kramer Society . ISSN  1606-4321 , Vol. 28, H. 1-2, May 2012, p. 71.

Movie

  • Eva Besnyö, de keurcollectie. Documentary by Leo Erken; Music: Tjitze Vogel , 51 min., 2003.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Whelan: Robert Capra: A Biography. Bison Books, 1994, p. 11.
  2. ^ Whelan, p. 24.
  3. ↑ Marion Beckers, Elisabeth Moortgat (ed.): Eva Besnyö. Das Verborgene Museum, Berlin 1991, p. 14.
  4. ↑ a b c d Matthias Weiß penetrated diagonally. Eva Besnyö in Berlin . Photo history H. 123
  5. ↑ Beckers and Moortgat, p. 16.
  6. ^ All quotations from Christiana Puschak, 2012, see Ref.
  7. ↑ cit. n. Hannelore Fischer (ed.): Eva Besnyö - photographer. Budapest, Berlin, Amsterdam. Wienand, Cologne 2018, p. 97
  8. ↑ Eva Besnyö - photographer. Budapest, Berlin, Amsterdam. www.kollwitz.de, accessed on September 13, 2018
  9. ↑ EVA BESNYÖ - photographer »Böttcherstrasse museums. Retrieved January 16, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Eva Besnyö. Photographer 1910–2003. Budapest - Berlin - Amsterdam. www.berlinischegalerie.de, accessed on September 13, 2018.
  11. ^ Anette Schneider: Consistency of concerns, form and content. Deutschlandradio Kultur on October 27, 2011, accessed on November 2, 2011. The exhibition then went to Paris.
  12. ↑ Unknown photos - Eva Besnyö. Jewish Historical Museum, 2007
  13. ↑ Soul mate. Hungarian photographers 1914-2003. Martin-Gropius-Bau , 2005
personal data
SURNAME Besnyő, Éva
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Besnyő, Eva Marianna; Besnyo Eva
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian-Dutch photographer
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 2003
Place of death Laren , North Holland