Henri Berssenbrugge
Bernard Heinrich Wilhelm Berssenbrugge , also Henri Berssenbrugge , (born September 13, 1873 in Rotterdam , † May 4, 1959 in Goirle near Tilburg ) was a Dutch photographer. He is considered one of the leading representatives of pictorialism in the Netherlands.
life and work
Henri Berssenbrugge (he himself always wrote his last name without umlaut) was the oldest child of the German trader Johann Wilhelm Berssenbrugge (* May 3, 1841, † March 9, 1911) and the Dutchwoman Elisabeth Catharina Warnken.
From 1887 to 1892 he received an artistic training at the Art Academy in Rotterdam. In the years 1892 and 1893 he did his military service. He then worked as a painter and stayed in Cologne between 1896 and 1899. He then returned to Rotterdam and continued his studies at the Art Academy, which he graduated in 1900. Around 1900 he also began to work as a photographer, so Berssenbrugge was self-taught . From 1901 to 1906 he ran a photo studio in Tilburg, from 1902 for a certain time together with Pierre Paul van Wulven, but later under the name “Au Héron”. His favorite photographic subjects at this time included shots of the everyday life of the rural population in the Tilburg area. From 1906 he ran a photo studio in Rotterdam.
A stay in Dresden is documented for 1909 and in Belgium for 1910 and 1914. During these stays abroad a number of recordings were made.
On September 4, 1913, Berssenbrugge married Ursulina Cornelia (Conny) Alban. Alban was 21 years younger than him and the daughter of a fellow student Berssenbrugges at the Rotterdam Academy. The couple's first child (Ursuline Lisette) was born on 1914, the second child (Hans André Willem) in 1916. The marriage with Conny Alban was divorced on June 20, 1919. His daughter and son stayed with him. In the same year, on August 26th, he married Joanna Maria Josephina Ludovica (Jo) Melis (* May 5, 1891, † June 19, 1989 in Tilburg). Melis came from Tilburg, where the couple lived in Goirle from 1942 until his death.
In November 1921, Erwin Quedenfeldt gave Berssenbrugge the entire rights of use for the Erwinotypie fine printing process invented by Quedenfeldt .
A stroke he suffered in 1939 ended his artistic career.
In addition to the rural scenes from his early days as a photographer, Berssenbrugge is particularly known for his urban street scenes and portraits of the cultural elite of the Netherlands of his time.
The photographer Wim Berssenbrugge (1918–2007) was his nephew.
Atelier in The Hague
The Berssenbrugges photo studio in the Hague's Zeestraat, where he had moved from Rotterdam in 1916, was historically significant . With the relocation, he wanted to win a more demanding clientele and concentrate on the production of portraits that reflect the character of the clients. A few years later, in 1921, he had the photo studio of Jan Wils (architecture) and Vilmos Huszár (color design) expanded according to the ideas of the De Stijl art and architecture movement with the desire to have a light and relaxed studio space.
A tall, rectangular room with windows on three sides and skylights was added behind the previous reception salon. The walls were painted white and black in large rectangles with structured yellow-ocher-colored stripes, the floor in two different shades of gray.
Adapted to the clear interior design by Wils and Huszár, the furniture was puristic in terms of type and scope . There was a small fireplace, a wall bench, and only three chairs, an armchair, and three small tables of movable furniture. The movable furniture was designed by Gerrit Rietveld as right-angled constructions made up of linear, flat and cubist basic forms. The floor of the studio was divided with black, blue and raspberry-red (according to other information, strawberry-red) carpets of different sizes.
The spatial effect of the studio for the viewer was changed by the large areas of clear contrasting color areas and their correspondences, as well as the coordinated furnishings. Indeed, contemporaries perceived it as having a light and relaxed spatial effect. However, it was also noted at the time that the strongly composed unity of the spatial effect was already noticeably disturbed by objects with different shapes and colors, such as an orange lying on the table.
swell
- Biographical information on the website of the Stichting tot Behoud van Tilburgs Cultuurgoed [3] , in Dutch, accessed on November 27, 2011
- Biographical information on the website of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie [4] , in Dutch, accessed on November 28, 2011
- Biographical information and appreciation by Ingeborg Th. Leijerzapf on the Depth of Field website [5] , in Dutch, accessed on November 28, 2011
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Website of the library of the University of Leiden, accessed on November 27, 2011
- ↑ Death note for Johann Wilhelm Berrssenbrügge, digitized and available at the University of Leiden [1]
- ↑ Anneke Bokern about an exhibition with photos from Berssenbrugges in the Kunsthal Rotterdam, reproduced on the website museumserver.nl ( memento of the original from November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 27, 2011
- ↑ Johan Degewij: Wim Berssenbrugge. Haags Verzetsfotograaf. De Nieuwe Haagsche, The Hague 2010, ISBN 978-94-6010-044-4 , p. 1.
- ↑ Michael White: De Stijl and Dutch modernism. Manchester University Press, Manchester 2003, p. 108. [2]
- ↑ JP Mieras: The Atelier van Berssenbrugge te 's-Gravenhage. In: Bouwkundig Weekblad, 1922, No. 16, pp. 150–152.
- ^ Carsten-Peter Warncke: The ideal as art. De Stijl 1917-1931. Taschen, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-8228-0416-9 , pp. 130 f.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Berssenbrugge, Henri |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Berssenbrugge, Bernard Heinrich Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Dutch photographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 13, 1873 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rotterdam |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 4th 1959 |
| Place of death | Goirle near Tilburg |