Katharina Eleonore Behrend

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Katharina Eleonore Behrend (born July 26, 1888 in Leipzig , † November 15, 1973 in The Hague ) was a German - Dutch photographer .

Life

Behrend was born in Leipzig in 1888 as the daughter of a chemist. From 1894 to 1900 she attended the secondary school for girls . The family moved to Hanover in 1900 , where Behrend completed their schooling. In the same year, the twelve-year-old began to be enthusiastic about her father's hobby and to take her first photos with his camera. Young Katharina grew up in a liberal family where art and culture were important. As a young girl, she received Italian conversation lessons and art history and piano lessons. She played theater, read classical and modern literature and was socially engaged at an early age.

From 1913 Behrend lived in the Netherlands , where she married the steam engine manufacturer Arie Haentjens in Leiden . Already during the engagement time she learned Dutch, attended lectures on mechanical engineering and dealt with the history of her new home. Two daughters were born in 1916 and 1921. In 1926 the family moved to The Hague, where Haentjens took up a position with the International Nautical Trading Company. 1928 is the last year Behrend took regular photographs. From then on she was mainly employed as a mother and housewife. In 1943 the family moved back to Leiden, but returned to The Hague again in 1953. In 1954, Behrend suffered a stroke of fate: the youngest daughter died.

On December 29, 1973, nine days after the death of her husband, Katharina Behrend died of a bowel disease in a hospital in The Hague.

plant

The work of Behrends is considered to be an important contribution to the history of photography in the Netherlands. Between 1904 and 1928 she photographed relatives and friends and documented her surroundings and her travels. She not only captured her experiences in photographs, but also documented them in a diary. She also numbered each negative and recorded the shutter speed, location, and time of exposure. Her very natural-looking photographic reports paint a vivid picture of her time. In addition to family celebrations, trips and excursions, she also took nature and landscape photos, which prove that the young woman had a keen sense for lighting conditions and effects. Her compositional skills and the harmonious composition of the image are remarkable.

Behrend owned a 9 × 12 camera. The negatives are mostly on glass plates and were developed by herself and some of them enlarged. From 1930 she used a Zeiss Ikon Ikonta with roll film.

Her self-portraits are unusual. An early one from 1908 shows her posing naked in front of a cloth. It is strongly reminiscent of Ingres “ Die Quelle ”, which Behrend probably knew. An interesting aspect of Behrend's work is nude photography. As a supporter of nudism , Behrend repeatedly took pictures of the naked during activities in nature. Such photos exist as early as 1910 and 1911 that German photographers only dared to take years later.

estate

Behrend's estate consists of 900 negatives. They were family-owned until 1990. Behrend's grandson then transferred the negatives to the Dutch Photo Archive Foundation and has been kept in the collection of the Netherlands Photo Museum in Rotterdam since 2003 .

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

  • 2004: Katharina Eleonore Behrend - photography 1904–1928, travel. Portrait. Everyday life . The hidden museum, Berlin
  • 2005: Katharina Eleonore Behrend. Photographs 1904-1928 . Gallery Cokkie Snoei, Rotterdam

Group exhibitions

  • 2003: Photographers in Nederland 1852–2002 . The Hague Photo Museum
  • 2007: Dutch Eyes . Nederlands Photo Museum, Rotterdam

literature

  • Carla van der Stap: Katharina Eleonore Behrend. In: Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Photography in monographs and themed articles. uitgeverij Voetnoot, Amsterdam 1991.
  • Val Willimas: Woman Photographers. The Other Observers, 1900 to the Present . Virago Press, London 1986, ISBN 0-86068-624-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ H. Bolten-Rempt, Walter Haentjens, Carla van der Stap: Katharina Eleonore Behrend: Photo's 1904–1928 . Rotterdam Nederlands Fotoarchief, 1991, ISBN 90-801072-1-2 , p. 13.
  2. ↑ Bolten-Rempt, Haentjens, van der Stap (1991), p. 12.
  3. ↑ Bolten-Rempt, Haentjens, van der Stap (1991), p. 19.
  4. ↑ Bolten-Rempt, Haentjens, van der Stap (1991), p. 15.
personal data
SURNAME Behrend, Katharina Eleonore
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Dutch photographer
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH 15th November 1973
Place of death The hague