PRESS

KIT

VAN
DER E N
ED ELSK LOVE
#laviefolle

M E R A I N
C A 06/13–0 9 / 2 4 / 2 0 1 7

1, PLACE DE LA CONCORDE · PARIS 8 E · M° CONCORDE

WWW.JEUDEPAUME.ORG
Exposition organised by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in collaboration with the Jeu de Paume.

With special thanks to Anneke Hilhorst and Han Hogeland, Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam, the
Special Collections Department of Leiden University, EYE Film Museum Amsterdam, Netherlands Institute
for Sound and Vision, Hilversum, Annet Gelink Gallery Amsterdam and Paradox Edam.

This exhibition is part of Oh ! Pays-Bas, Dutch cultural season in France 2017-2018.

MEDIA PARTNERS
À Nous Paris, de l’air, Time Out Paris, Transfuge, Paris Première, France Inter

Thanks to the Hôtel Napoléon Paris

TOUR
Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid : 23 January - 20 May 2018

The Jeu de Paume receives public funding from the Ministère de la Culture and de la Communication
and its main corporate sponsors are Neuflize OBC and Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre.

• Cover:
Ed van der Elsken, Pierre Feuillette (Jean-Michel) and Paulette Vielhomme (Claudine) kissing at café Chez Moineau, Rue du Four, Paris, 1953
Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam / © Ed van der Elsken / Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
 K E N
ED ELS LOVE VAN
DER

M E R A I N
C A 06/13–09 / 2 4 / 2 0 1 7

CURATOR
Hripsimé Visser

SUMMARY
5 - FOREWORD

6 - EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS

8 - THE EXHIBITION

11 - EXHIBITION THEMES

16 - BIOGRAPHY

23 - THE EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

24 - PRESS VISUALS

32 - THE JEU DE PAUME

33 - MORE SPACES

34 - PRACTICAL INFO

3
FOREWORD
By Marta Gili, director of the Jeu de Paume
and Beatrix Ruf, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Ed van der Elsken (1925–1990) once described himself as a hunter. A photographer who
seduced and challenged his prey, and struck at just the right moment. But he was more than
that. He was also a man who would have liked to have transplanted a camera into his head
to permanently record the world around him; a photographer who staged and directed
his images of “real life” using technique and composition. He was, in the words of curator
Hripsimé Visser, “a child of his times: sombre in the 1950s, rebellious in the 1960s, liberated
in the 1970s, reflective in the 1980s. A strong character who unscrupulously threw himself into
the fray and, in his film Bye, the moving account of his terminal illness, had the courage to
strike out on new paths right to the very end.”

Since his death in 1990 a number of exhibitions in both the Netherlands and abroad have
been devoted to the work of Ed van der Elsken, and his books and films have been the
subjects of academic study. For example, over the past couple of decades students at Leiden
University have analysed four of his photobooks. The republication of some of his books has
also prompted renewed interest in his work, and the Nederlands Fotomuseum’s ongoing
project to restore his slides has contributed to a reappraisal and growing appreciation of his
lesser-known colour photography. So van der Elsken’s work is still firmly in the spotlight.

Maybe his work appeals to so many people today because our relationship with the camera
has changed so radically over the past decade. Ed van der Elsken said “Show who you are”,
and, as Colin van Heezik so expertly argues in his essay in this catalogue, that one small
phrase is the key to his work: “He showed who he was and who others were. It is also the
bridge to our times. In the age of the selfie, we all want to show who we are, think we are,
hope we are – and we look at van der Elsken’s work with new eyes.”

Camera in Love is the most comprehensive retrospective of Ed van der Elsken’s work in
twenty-five years, presented by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Jeu de Paume
in Paris. After Amsterdam and Paris, the exhibition will travel to the Fundación Mapfre in
Madrid. The exhibition focuses on van der Elsken’s unique qualities as a photographer, film-
maker and producer of books, and on his experiments with different forms of presentation.
Van der Elsken loved experimenting, not only in his photographs, books and films but also
in his remarkable exhibitions and the audiovisuals he made from the 1970s onwards.

Excerpt of the foreword published in the exhibition catalogue Ed van der Elsken. Camera in Love.
Coedition Jeu de Paume / éditions Xavier Barral
Ed van der Elsken, Beethovenstraat, Amsterdam, 1967. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate, courtesy Annet
Gelink Gallery

5
 EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS

• This is the first overview of Ed van der Elsken’s work in • Ed van der Elsken (1925-1990) first became known with
France and the first large exhibition of his work in twenty the publication of Love on the Left Bank (Un amour à
years. The exhibition was earlier on show at the Stedelijk Saint-Germain-des- Prés) in 1956. It is the result of a four
Museum Amsterdam and will travel to Fundació Mapfre year long stay in Paris and a moving and iconic portrait of
Madrid in 2018. a lost generation. Not only the photographs for this book
but also contact sheets, book dumies, earlier publications
and the filmed memories of main character Vali Myers are
one of the main focuses of the exhibition.
• In four decennies (1950-1990) Dutch photographer and
film maker Ed van der Elsken realised an astonishing oeuvre
that consists of photographs, books, films and slide shows.
All these different platforms and media are represented in • Ed van der Elsken made a great number of books.
the show. It consists of more than 150 original prints, later Besides Love on the Left Bank there are other iconic ones
color prints, filmfragments and slide shows, montages and such as Bagara, Jazz and Sweet Life, wonderful examples
book dummies, contact sheets and documentation, such as of the subjective stream of consciousness approach of the
texts, publications and projections of some of his books. fifties and sixties. They are not only remarkable because
of their photography as such but even more so thanks to
montage and printing technique.
• First of all Ed van der Elsken was a street photographer.
In cities like Paris, Amsterdam and Tokyo he looked for
what he called ‘his people’: men, women, old and young • In his films Ed van der Elsken was close to cinéma vérité.
in whom he recognized a certain authenticity, a form of He adjusted his cameras in order to work as independent-
pride that for him equalled beauty. His speciality was the ly as possible. His films are documentary in nature, often
way he made contact with people and challenged them experimental in form and characterized by the obvious
to confront his camera. Unlike today’s streetbloggers he presence of the filmmaker himself. In his slide shows he
was not interested in fashion or style but in humanity. was looking for a form between photography and film.
The exhibition includes two slide shows, Eye Love You
(1976) and Tokyo Symphony, a posthumously completed
• The exhibition is centered around the photographs Van ode to the city he loved and visited many times.
der Elsken made in Paris during the fifties, on his travels
to Africa and his tour around the world at the end of the
fifties and in Amsterdam and Japan in different periods
of his life. Filmfragments, often based on elements of
his own life, echo and open up the subject matter of his
photographs.

6
Ed van der Elsken, Twins on the Nieuwmarkt place, Amsterdam, 1956. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken
/ Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
THE EXHIBITION

Ed van der Elsken (1925-1990) is a unique figure in Dutch 20th-century

documentary cinema and photography. As a photographer, his preferred subject
was the street, and in cities like Paris, Amsterdam, Hong Kong or Tokyo, he
enjoyed ‘hunting’ for subjects. Often qualified as a ‘photographer of marginal
figures’, he sought in reality an aesthetic form, a visual authenticity, devoid of
artifice, a beauty that was sometimes openly sensual, at times even erotic. Ed van
der Elsken was fascinated by these proud figures, full of life and vitality.

The exhibition at the Jeu de Paume presents a large selection of some of his
most iconic images: shots of Paris from the 1950s, figures photographed on his
numerous travels or in his native Amsterdam from the 1960s onwards, as well as
his books, and excerpts from his films and slide shows, particularly Eye Love You
and Tokyo Symphony.

Van der Elsken photographs and films his subjects in situations that are often theatrical,
and he behaves like a director, engaging in conversation with the people he photographs.
He likes to be provocative and encourages his subjects to exaggerate or accentuate certain
personality traits he detects in them. In addition to his theatrical, extravagant photography,
van der Elsken has also produced a large number of understated and moving images,
revelatory of his poetic nature, his innate sense of solidarity with others, and his profound
empathy for all living creatures.

Van der Elsken published approximately twenty books and produced a large number of
films. His first book, Love on the Left Bank, was published in 1956. Taking the form of a
banal but rather unusual photobook, Love on the Left Bank is a semi-fictive account of
disaffected young people, living in Paris after the Second World War. The dark tone and
expressive approach, as well as the book’s almost cinematic quality contributed to its
instant success. Love on the Left Bank was followed by a number of photo documentaries
from his travels: Bagara (1958) featuring photographs from his trip to Equatorial Africa,
and Sweet Life (1966), from his round-the-world journey in 1959-1960. Jazz (1958) is
also worth mentioning. The book is a vibrant ode to the explosion of jazz music on the
Amsterdam scene. In the 1980s, he published photobooks on Paris and Amsterdam, as
well as De ontdekking van Japan (The Discovery of Japan) based on his numerous trips to
Japan, and colour publications: Eye Love You (1976), depicting photographs from around
the world against the backdrop of the liberal atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s, and
Avonturen op het land (Adventures in the Countryside) (1980), van der Elsken’s tribute to
life in the polders in the northern Netherlands.

For van der Elsken, photography was never fixed. His work could be used for publications
or books, just as easily as it could be screened (if in colour), or shown in slide-show format.
His exhibitions often consisted of installations combining prints, texts, and multiple formats.
In the 1960s and 1970s, his presentations were far removed from more traditional or
conventional photographic exhibitions.

8
At the same time, the growing market for photography and van der Elsken’s own financial demands
made him more aware of the value of his prints, which he often worked in a very personal and
expressive fashion. For his photography work and his films, he always tried to find the technique
that suited his approach and the subject, even inventing one himself, if needs be. His pioneering use
of colour photography was little recognized at the time, even discredited by his contemporaries. In
Paris, as early as the 1950s, he had already been using colour photography, but due to financial
and technical constraints, this work was rarely reproduced, or in some cases, not at all.

Excerpts from films and slide shows exhibited as part of the Eye Love You and Tokyo Symphony
exhibition were edited after his death using the sound script and his numerous colour shots. In
addition to his contact sheets, drawings and maquettes for some of his works, personal documents,
letters, and notes shed new light on his way of working and his personality. Excerpts from his texts,
often caustic or humorous in tone, complete the presentation of this masterful photographer and
film-maker.

The exhibition is produced with the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in collaboration with Anneke
Hilhorst and Han Hogeland, University of Leiden, the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam, and the
Jeu de Paume, Paris.

Ed van der Elsken, Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood, Amsterdam, 1961. Nederlands Fotomuseum © Ed van der Elsken / Collection Ed van der Elsken
estate

9
EXHIBITION THEMES

Recalcitrant, self-aware, and committed. For more than forty years, Ed van der Elsken looked for
“his” people on the streets of cities such as Paris, Amsterdam, and Tokyo. He preferred to publish his
photographs in book form, producing such titles as the internationally acclaimed photographic novel
Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Love on the Left Bank, 1956), the monumental
Sweet Life (1966), and the impressive De ontdekking van Japan (The Discovery of Japan, 1988).
In addition, he captured the world around him with a movie camera. His angle was generally
autobiographical, his approach direct, his methods unconventional, and his own presence almost
always visible. “Hey, beautiful. Look into the camera,” he would shout provocatively from behind his
lens. He loved quirky characters and young rebels, and served as a chronicler of the zeitgeist.

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam followed van der Elsken from the start of his career, and began
collecting his work at an early stage. In 1966 the museum organized a major Van der Elsken
exhibition, Hee… zie je dat? (Hey... Do You See That?), and in 1991 the retrospective Once Upon a
Time. Now, over twenty-five years later, the Stedelijk is celebrating van der Elsken’s oeuvre with a rich
exhibition featuring all aspects of his artistry. He worked across various platforms and experimented
with techniques, editing, and layout, creating publications and films, slide projections, and video.
Dummies, contact sheets, and sketches provide an insight into his working methods, while film clips in
black and white or color emphasize his significance as a filmmaker and the relationship between this
work and his photography. In today’s visual culture, with its selfies and merging of disciplines, Ed van
der Elsken’s work remains undeniably topical.

PARIS & LOVE ON THE LEFT BANK

Ed van der Elsken found his own style in Paris. At first he was enamored by the urban scenery, focusing
on street artists, clochards and beggars, lovers by the Seine, demonstrations, and posters. But his
encounter with the redheaded Vali Myers and her friends in a nightclub led to a radically new and
personal approach. Van der Elsken photographed the bohemians of Saint-Germain-des-Prés mainly at
night and with ambient light. The gleam of lampposts and mirrors in cafés lend atmosphere to his velvety
black photographs. He captured embraces, flirtation, loneliness, and the intoxication of alcohol and drugs
with a great sense of the physical, of plasticity. The distance between the photographer and his subjects is
small. He seems to photograph them unnoticed, but sometimes obviously made them pose. Either way, his
approach represents a move away from the unwritten rules of the observational postwar documentary.

In the late 1970s Ed van der Elsken used his archive to compile a photo book about his time in Paris, in
the early 1950s. In words and images he looks back at what was often a difficult beginning: his work in
the laboratory of the Magnum Photos agency, his first steps on the path to professional photography, his
life with photographer Ata Kandó and her three children, his contact with Dutch artists and, of course,
the process of creating his first book, Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Love on the Left
Bank).

10
 Van der Elsken jotted down his ideas and made sketches for newspaper and magazine projects in a
Rhodia notebook. He initially worked with a Rolleiflex and had to be economical with his film; later he
photographed with a Leica, which reduced the distance between him and his subjects. An important
theme was his family’s daily life, which he recorded in spontaneous snapshots and carefully staged
situations, sometimes literally acted out for the camera.

In his 1972 film, Death in the Port Jackson Hotel, Ed van der Elsken introduced the recollections
of Vali Myers, his muse and the protagonist of his first, iconic book, the photographic novel Een
liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Love on the Left Bank, 1956). While the book blends fact
and fiction to create the impossible love story between a Mexican, Manuel (Roberto Inignez-Morelosy),
and Ann (Vali Myers), the reality that Vali remembers turns out to be raw and harsh.
Love on the Left Bank, partly autobiographical, partly romanticized, was a departure from the positive
mood of postwar documentary humanism and was one of the first indications of interest in the
phenomenon of youth culture, with its doubts, violence, and addictions. Van der Elsken’s photographic
approach is that of a participant: direct and emotional. Together with graphic designer Jurriaan Schrofer,
he experimented with editing, layout, and framing. The story is told as one big flashback, a principle that
combines with the varying sequences of images and perspectives to give the book its cinematic character.

Ed van der Elsken, Vali Myers (Ann) dancing at La Scala, Paris, 1950. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Collection Stedelijk Mu-
seum Amsterdam

11
BAGARA & SWEET LIFE

In the late 1950s Ed van der Elsken embarked on his first long journeys. The photographs he took in Central
Africa in 1957–1958 show him to be both a cultural anthropologist, in search of an “authentic” culture, and an
enthusiastic reporter of the ups and downs in the lives of the villagers of Ubangi-Shari. Van der Elsken was a
master at capturing dramatic situations involving certain rituals and during the hunt. His technique became more
sophisticated in this period; in contrast to Paris, here he used flash to create relief in his night shots.

On the world tour he undertook two years later with his wife, Gerda van der Veen, he defined his personal style
and methods. While his travelogues for television incorporate his sense of adventure, his understanding of form,
and his travels with his young wife, his photographs reflect a growing interest in individuals and their circumstances.
Increasingly, his subjects became characters with whom he often entered very directly, however briefly, into a
personal relationship.

At the invitation of his brother-in-law, who was a district commissioner in Ubangi-Shari, the photographer traveled
to Central Africa in 1957, a year before the French colony became independent. During his three-month stay, he
captured daily life in remote villages. He asked children to make drawings of magical figures and of rituals, such as
a circumcision, which he was not allowed to photograph, and included these pictures in Bagara.

The title of the book means “buffalo,” an animal

that Ed van der Elsken felt “unites in itself all the
wildness, cunning, and life force of Africa.” Bagara
represented his vision of “the real Africa,” as
reflected in the title of the book’s German edition,
Das echte Afrika; contemporary aspects such as
cars and the presence of white people are virtually
absent.

The book, moreover, which contains both black-

and-white and color photographs, was created in
close collaboration with Jurriaan Schrofer and has
a flowing, narrative structure. The text, a separate
appendix at the back of the book, was written
by his journalist friend, Jan Vrijman, based on an
interview.

Ed van der Elsken and his then-wife, Gerda van

der Veen, left the Netherlands on August 22,
1959, and sailed the world for fourteen months.
They funded their adventure by making films for
television and photographs for magazines. The
journey began in Senegal and Sierra Leone, after
which they traveled to South Africa. Their next
ports of call were Malaysia and Singapore, and
then they went via the Philippines to Hong Kong.
At the end of November they arrived in Japan,
where they stayed for three months. The world tour
ended in Mexico and the United States.

Sweet Life, which to his frustration did not find a

publisher until 1966, embodied Van der Elsken’s
spirit of adventure, his interest in humanity, and
his fascination with other cultures. The title was
inspired by a boat he photographed in the
Philippines; the book was originally going to
be called Crazy World. Van der Elsken artfully
combined his photographs to shape their meaning. Ed van der Elsken, Los Angeles, USA, 1960. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rot-
He insisted that the Japanese printers use the terdam © Ed van der Elsken / Special Collections Department of Leiden Univer-
deepest dramatic black for this self-designed book, sity
employing a copperplate technique.
12
AMSTERDAM & JAZZ

Ed van der Elsken frequently devoted himself to street photography in Amsterdam, the city of his birth. This was
where he developed his liking for young rebels and interesting characters, which he first photographed in black and
white, then in color starting in the 1970s. His images reflect the atmosphere of the capital in successive decades. In
the 1950s he photographed “his” Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood: a female barkeeper, greaser types, two stylish sisters,
a dreamy-eyed girl with a cotton-candy hairdo, and children in homemade costumes. Jazz also became increasingly
popular in the 1950s. Young people worked themselves into a frenzy at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw watching
evening concerts by Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Ella Fitzgerald, among others. Van der Elsken was carried along
by this enthusiasm, his camera perfectly capturing the feeling of spontaneity in the music and the audience’s intense
experience. He was a true photojournalist only to a limited extent, but his photographs from the late 1960s also
depict historic riots and disturbances. Color became more important from the 1970s, although this barely changed
his approach. Even so, film began to occupy an increasingly important position in his work.

In the 1950s jazz music rapidly became popular in the Netherlands. Ed van der Elsken’s journalist friend, Jan Vrijman,
took him to a Chet Baker concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and he was immediately captivated. The
book Jazz (1959) was the product of various photographs he took of jazz concerts, including performances by
Miles Davis, Lionel Hampton, and Ella Fitzgerald. Van der Elsken himself designed the layout of Jazz, translating the
music into images and montages. Photographs with a horizontal format allude to the sustained notes of the trumpet
or saxophone, while his vertical photographs are reminiscent of piano keys. The photographs change at a rapid
tempo, similar to the way jazz musicians use different elements to construct a piece of music.alors que les verticales
rappellent les touches d’un piano. Les photos défilent à un rythme rapide, un peu à la manière dont les jazzmen
combinent différents modules pour construire leurs morceaux.

Ed van der Elsken, Adolescents with their fifties inspired attire near their ‘home’, Amsterdam, 1983 (c. 1978)
Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate

13
From 1959 Ed van der Elsken focused increasingly on film. During his world tour he made brief travelogues for
Dutch television. These have unfortunately been lost, with the exception of a rough montage of often very formal
clips. For one of his first documentaries Van der Elsken filmed his friend Karel Appel. He also made experimental
short films, such as Handen (Hands c. 1960), an associative montage of different functions and movements of
hands. In 1962 Van der Elsken filmed the Stedelijk’s exhibition Dylaby at the invitation of Willem Sandberg, the
museum’s director, wittily capturing the public’s participation and interaction. The found footage Armoede (Poverty
c. 1965) is a social document of the grinding poverty in the Amsterdam in the early 1960s.

CAMERA IN LOVE

In 1970 Ed van der Elsken escaped Amsterdam and bought a

farmhouse beside the IJsselmeer, a lake near Edam, where he soon
went to live. The film De verliefde camera (The Infatuated Camera/
Camera in Love, 1971) focuses mainly on his foreign assignments for
the magazine Avenue. It begins with images of the photographer
capturing a birth and ends with his motto, which he declares from
his Mini Moke in which he drives around the farm with his family in
Edam. The fisheye lens that he uses is a typical technical joke.
In 1971 Ed van der Elsken sought out Vali Myers, his muse from Een
liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Love on the Left
Bank). In Death in the Port Jackson Hotel he portrayed the artist in
the wild Italian valley where she was living with her young lover,
Gianni Menichetti, and her animals.
Avonturen op het land (Adventures in the Countryside, 1980) is Ed van der Elsken, Camera in Love, 1971.
a tribute to the flora and fauna – and the people – around the Photogramme. EYE © Ed van der Elsken
farmhouse in Edam through the seasons. He also produced a book
with the same title.

EYE LOVE YOU

Love, as it is experienced and practiced all around the world, is the universal theme of Ed van der Elsken’s “people
book,” Eye Love You. The slideshow of the same name was shown at the Stedelijk Museum when the photo book
was published in 1977. Pictures of hippies, nudist beaches, couples making love, and Indian transvestites contrast
with the more serious subjects that Van der Elsken documented for Avenue during his travels. He captured poverty,
the struggle for existence, and even death in color. The result is a tribute to humankind, van der Elsken’s own
Family of Man.

14
 JAPAN

During his first visit to Tokyo, in the late 1950s, Ed van der Elsken gradually became the playful, provocative
director of “his” people. Yakuza, Japanese gangsters in American suits, appear to focus on the viewer, like
actors in a B movie. The transsexuals’ amusement is palpable as they flirtatiously face the photographer. Van
der Elsken made fifteen trips to Japan in total. The country, its inhabitants, culture, and traditional values and
customs intrigued him. He documented typical Japanese subjects like sumo wrestlers, bowed greetings, and
the incredible jostling around train doors. Not only did he photograph polite and often modest customs,
but also Japan’s rising consumerism and (once again) youth culture. Although the majority of his Japanese
photographs still involved the urban landscape, van der Elsken also took some shots of nature and the
countryside.

Ed van der Elsken, Girl in metro, Tokyo, 1981. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken /
Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

TOKYO SYMPHONY

For Ed van der Elsken, the slideshow was an inspiring form, existing between the static photograph and the
expensive medium of film. He created various audiovisuals, some with synchronous sound. During the last phase
of his life, he worked on an audiovisual presentation about Tokyo, the metropolis with which he had such a special
connection. He photographed the fish market, demonstrations, attractive people, mannequins, young alternative
types, and female wrestlers. Van der Elsken was unable to complete this project due to health problems. Tokyo
Symphony was realized posthumously on the basis of his color slides and audio material and was shown for the
first time in 2010.

BYE
Ed van der Elsken’s first autobiographical film was Welkom in het leven, lieve kleine (Welcome to Life, Dear Little
One). With his last film, Bye, in which he is both the protagonist and the cameraman, van der Elsken bids farewell
to life. In 1988 he was given a terminal diagnosis and decided to document the progression of his disease and the
shrinking world around him. It was, for him, the only way to face this experience. Bye is an intimate and personal
self-portrait in which Van der Elsken openly expresses his sadness, fear, pain, and anger. He also gives attention to
other photographers, his own photography, and his family, and comes across as a witty and spirited personality,
right until the end.

15
 ED VAN DER ELSKEN

Ed van der Elsken, Autoportrait avec Ata Kandó, Paris, 1953. Nederlands Fotomuseum
© Ed van der Elsken / Collection Ed van der Elsken estate

1925
Ed van der Elsken is born in Amsterdam on 10 March 1925.

1942
The Netherlands is invaded by the German army on 10 May 1940. Van der Elsken is ordered to report for
military service but succeeds in having himself declared unfit for service.

1943
Van der Elsken decides to become a sculptor and attends the Institute of Applied Arts in Amsterdam but is forced
to go into hiding. When the southern Netherlands is liberated he goes to work as an interpreter. He volunteers
for the mine clearance service and is trained to dismantle explosives.

1945-1947
After Van der Elsken is discharged from the army he moves back to his parents’ home.

Van der Elsken wants to become a projectionist, so goes in training in order to become an electrician. He changes
his mind and takes a correspondence course at the Fotovakschool college of photography in The Hague, but fails
the exam. He also works as a technical corrector at De Arbeiderspers publishing house.

Van der Elsken takes photographs in the streets of Amsterdam using a 9x12 plate camera. In order to save up for
his own Rolleicord camera he assists different photographers.

1950
Van der Elsken moves to Paris. He is given a job at Pictorial Service, Magnum’s photographic laboratory. There
he meets Hungarian photographer Ata Kandó (b.1913), and they start a relationship. After a few months he
resigns and begins photographing in the streets again. He makes contact with a group of young bohemians who
kill their time on the streets and in the bars and cafés of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

16
Ed van der Elsken, Jean-Michel Mension (Pierre) and Auguste Hommel (Benny), Paris, 1953. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken /
Ed van der Elsken Estate
 Ed van der Elsken, Refugee girl, Hong Kong, 1959-1960. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken /
Special Collections Department of Leiden University

Ed van der Elsken, Chet Baker in a concert at the Concertgebouw,

Amsterdam, 1955 (c. 1985). Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam
© Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate
1953
Van der Elsken meets Edward Steichen, curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Steichen selects eighteen photos by Van der Elsken for the exhibition Postwar European Photography (1953)
and one for the Family of Man (1955). On Steichen’s advice, Van der Elsken starts work on a book of photos
from Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

1954
Ata Kandó and Ed van der Elsken marry in Sèvres on June 26.

1955
Ed van der Elsken moves to Amsterdam, along with Ata Kandó and her three children.

Van der Elsken’s first solo exhibition takes place at the Art Institute of Chicago from 10 May to 1 July. It then
moves to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Thanks to a television broadcast on his Saint- Germain-des-Prés photographs, Van der Elsken meets television
director Leen Timp, and becomes interested in film.

Ed van der Elsken and Ata Kandó divorce on 16 September.

1956
Van der Elsken’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands, in the company canteen at Steendrukkerij De Jong &
Co in Hilversum.

Love on the Left Bank is published.

In December Van der Elsken leaves for French Equatorial Africa on a commission from publisher De Bezige Bij.

1957
Ed van der Elsken and Gerda van der Veen marry on 25 September.

1958
Bagara is published.

1959
Jazz is published.

Ed van der Elsken and Gerda van der Veen leave for a 14-month round-the-world trip. Besides photographs
Van der Elsken makes films for Dutch television.

1961
Disappointed at his failure to get the book about his world trip published, Van der Elsken turns his back on
photography and starts making more films.

Tinelou, Ed and Gerda’s first child, is born on 12 June. The name Tinelou is based on Tinguely, whom Gerda
greatly admires.

1962
Van der Elsken experiments with film equipment, developing new techniques for recording synchronous sound
with a 16mm camera.

1963
Film Welkom in het leven, lieve kleine (‘Welcome to Life, Dear Little One’)

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Ed van der Elsken, Paris, 1950 (c. 1979). Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate
1965-1969
Amsterdam begins to feel the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1960s. Van der Elsken is on hand to record the
unrest in the city.

Publication of Sweet Life, his book about the world trip.

1971
Ed van der Elsken and Gerda van der Veen separate and divorce two years later. Van der Elsken moves to a
smallholding in Edam.

1973
He meets Anneke Hilhorst and she moves in with him in Edam.

1975
Van der Elsken opens a gallery in his home to sell his photographs.

1977
Eye Love You is published.

1979
Amsterdam! Oude foto’s (‘Old Photographs’) 1947-1970 is published.

7 July: birth of Ed van der Elsken and Anneke Hilhorst’s son Johnny.

1980
Film and Book Avonturen op het land (‘Adventures in the Countryside’).
Parijs! Foto’s 1950-1954 is published.

1982
Realization of Een fotograaf filmt Amsterdam (‘A Photographer films Amsterdam’).

1984
8 March: Ed van der Elsken marries Anneke Hilhorst.

1986
Major exhibition in Tokyo, Japan: San-jeruman-de pure no koi (L’Amour
à Saint-Germain-des-Prés).

1988
Publication of De ontdekking van Japan (‘The Discovery of Japan’).
Van der Elsken receives the David Roëll Prize for lifetime achievement.
Ed van der Elsken is informed that he is terminally ill.

1989
He documents the progress of his illness in his film Bye.

1990
Van der Elsken is awarded the CapiLux Anniversary Prize.

Ed van der Elsken dies on 28 December in Edam.

21
Ed van der Elsken, Rockers, Harajuku, Tokyo, 1984. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate
 THE EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

Ed van der Elsken. Camera in Love

24.5 x 29.2 cm, 280 pages, 230 illustrations b&w

and colour

Foreword by Marta Gili and Beatrix Ruf

Texts by Susan Aasman, David Campany,

Nan Goldin, Valérie Jouve, Paulien Oltheten,
Colin van Heezik, Hripsimé Visser.

Coedition Jeu de Paume / Éditions Xavier Barral

Price: 45€

Additional readings

ROBERT FRANK. NAN GOLDIN. La ballade WILLIAM KLEIN. Photo Poche

Les Américains de la dépendance sexuelle Actes Sud
Delpire La Martiniere 2008
2007 2013 144 pages
174 pages 148 pages 13 €
35,50 € 39 €

Librairie du Jeu de Paume

1, place de la Concorde, Paris 8e
Mardi (nocturne) : 11 h-21 h
Mercredi à dimanche : 11 h-19 h / Fermeture le lundi
t. 01 47 03 12 36 / librairie@jeudepaume.org / www.librairiejeudepaume.org

23
Ed van der Elsken, Yakusa territory, Kamagasaki, Osaka, 1960 (1989). Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Collection Stede-
lijk Museum Amsterdam
 PRESS VISUALS
The copyright-free reproduction and display of the
following selection of images is permitted solely Copyright-free visuals can be downloaded from the
as part of the promotion of this exhibition at the Jeu de website www.jeudepaume.org
Paume and only while the exhibition is in progress.
User name: presskit
Any publication is copyright-free for the reproduction Password: photos
of 12 visuals, if you need more, please contact us.

• LOVE ON THE LEFT BANK

2 • Ed van der Elsken, Vali Myers (Ann) dancing at La Scala, Paris,

1950. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken /
Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

1 • Ed van der Elsken, Vali Myers (Ann) in front of her mirror,

Paris, 1953. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der
Elsken / Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

4 • Ed van der Elsken, Pierre Feuillette (Jean-Michel) and Paulette

Vielhomme (Claudine) kissing at café Chez Moineau, Rue du Four,
3 • Ed van der Elsken, Vali Myers (Ann), Paris, 1953. Nederlands Paris, 1953. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken /
Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Collection Stedelijk Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Museum Amsterdam
25
5 • Ed van der Elsken, Vali Myers (Ann), Roberto Inigez-Morelosy (Ma-
nuel) and Geraldine Krongold (Geri), Paris, 1950. Nederlands Fotomu-
seum
Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

6 • Ed van der Elsken, Pierre Feuillette (Jean-Michel Mension), Paris,

vers 1953 (2016). Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der
Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate, courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery

7 • Ed van der Elsken, Jean-Michel Mension (Pierre ) and Au-

guste Hommel (Benny) devant le Mabillon, Paris , 1953
Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed
van der Elsken Estate

8 • Ed van der Elsken, Jean-Michel Mension (Pierre) and Auguste Hom-

mel (Benny), Paris, 1953. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam
© Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate
26
 • PARIS

9 • Ed van der Elsken, Brigitte Bardot, Paris, 1952 (c. 1979)

Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken
Estate

10 • Ed van der Elsken, Paris, 1950 (c. 1979). Nederlands Fotomuseum

Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate

11 • Ed van der Elsken, Ata Kandó, Paris, 1952 (c. 1979). Nederlands
Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate

12 • Ed van der Elsken, Ata Kandó checks a print, Paris, 1953 (c. 1979).
Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam
© Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate
27
 • AMSTERDAM

13 • Ed van der Elsken, Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood, Amsterdam, 1961 (c. 1978). Nederlands Fotomuseum Rot-
terdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate

15 • Ed van der Elsken, Beethovenstraat, Amsterdam, 1967. Nederlands

Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate,
courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery

14 • Ed van der Elsken, Twins on the Nieuwmarkt place,

Amsterdam, 1956. Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam
© Ed van der Elsken / Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

16 • Ed van der Elsken, Adolescents with their fifties inspired

attire near their ‘home’, Amsterdam, 1983 (c. 1978).
Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken /
Ed van der Elsken Estate

28
 • THE DISCOVERY OF JAPAN

17 • Ed van der Elsken, Rockers, Harajuku, Tokyo, 1984. Nederlands

Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate

18 • Ed van der Elsken, Girl in metro, Tokyo, 1981. Nederlands Fotomuseum

Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

19 • Ed van der Elsken, Couple making love, Japan,

vers 1974 (2015). Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam
© Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate,
courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery

20 • Ed van der Elsken, Yakusa territory, Kamagasaki, Osaka, 1960 (1989). Ne-
derlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Collection Stedelijk Museum
Amsterdam

29
 • JAZZ

21 • Ed van der Elsken, Chet Baker in a concert at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, 1955
(c. 1985). Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate

• BAGARA

22 • Ed van der Elsken, Medicine man performing a ritual dance for a good hunt, Ubangi-Shari, Central Africa, 1957 (2016)
Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Ed van der Elsken Estate, courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery

30
 • SWEET LIFE

23 • Ed van der Elsken, Refugee girl, Hong Kong, 1959-1960. Nederlands

Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Special Collections Department of
Leiden University

24 • Ed van der Elsken, Los Angeles, USA, 1960. Nederlands

Fotomuseum Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Special Collec-
tions Department of Leiden University

25 • Ed van der Elsken, Bar girls, Cebu, Philippines, 1960. Nederlands Fotomuseum
Rotterdam © Ed van der Elsken / Collection du Stedelijk Museum d’Amsterdam

31
THE JEU DE PAUME
A historic venue dedicated to the image located in the heart of the Tuileries Gardens

The Jeu de Paume is an iconic cultural institution located in the Tuileries Gardens. It has gained an international
reputation as an art centre that exhibits and promotes all forms of mechanical and electronic imagery
(photography, cinema, video, installation, online creation, etc.) from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It
produces and coproduces exhibitions but also organises film programs, symposiums and seminars, as well as
educational activities. The Jeu de Paume also publishes a number of art publications each year. With its high-
profile exhibitions of established, little-known and emerging artists (especially via the Satellite program), this venue
ties together different narrative strands, mixing the historic and the contemporary.

Well-known artists (Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Philippe Halsman, etc.) as well as emerging
figures (Omer Fast, Oscar Muñoz, Helena Almeida, Ali Cherri, etc.) can all be seen in this space that attracts an
increasingly large and varied audience each year. Since 2007, the Jeu de Paume has been working to develop its
Internet presence and has been experimenting by developing a dedicated “virtual space” with a program of special
web-based projects and thematic shows entrusted to curators specialising in the digital arts. Film cycles are devised to
accompany many of the exhibitions, or simply to pay tribute to major figures of the independent film-making scene in
France and abroad. Specialising in documentary, experimental, art-house film and autobiography, with an emphasis
on previously unshown work, this program helps to create bridges between film-makers and artists. All activities at
the Jeu de Paume are driven by an overriding desire to draw parallels and engage a dialogue between the various
strands of visual culture and images, leading to a re-evaluation and reinvention of meaning in all fields of thought.
Talks, seminars and symposia explore the questions and themes raised by the exhibitions, helping to open up new
spaces for critical interaction.

The Jeu de Paume’s modular space and versatile educational program helps it respond to the different expectations
arising from its activities, and confirms its ambition to provide all of its users with an active hub and resource centre for
education in photographic imagery and the history of representation and the visual arts. Tours and courses, initiatives
for students and teachers, and activities for families and young visitors, are the main components of its educational
programme. The emphasis here is on participation rather than contemplation, exchange rather than the “colonisation
of knowledge,” and sharing rather than the monopolisation of ideas.

Le magazine, created on the Internet in 2010, uses a range of resources (video, photo gallery, audio and text
files), available in both French and English, to extend the debate around the use of images in today’s digital age.
Le magazine is a unique platform for artistic content, in-depth articles, virtual tours and portfolios. It is a web-based
forum for dialogue between historians, philosophers, artists, curators, film-makers, poets and the interested public.

The history of the Jeu de Paume

Built under Napoleon III in the spectacular Tuileries Gardens to house an indoor sports court,
the Jeu de Paume has hosted exhibitions since the early 20th century, and contemporary art
was first displayed here in 1922. Works of art confiscated from Jewish families were stored and
sorted in it during the German Occupation, when it became the nexus of activities that would
have remained unknown had it not been for the determination of the assistant curator Rose
Valland. After WWII, it housed the famous Impressionist Museum until 1986, before being com-
pletely renovated by the architect Antoine Stinco, and becoming a contemporary arts centre in
1991. It has been a major venue for photography and the image since 2004.
Françoise Bonnefoy, Spirit of place, 64 pages, 17.5 x 12 cm. Retail price €6.50. Available in both French and English.

32
 MORE
A NEW SPACE FOR THE BOOKSHOP SPACES

A TOP-OF-THE-RANGE BOOKSHOP

The Jeu de Paume bookshop is undergoing a facelift! This summer, visitors can browse the impressive selection
of books on offer in a larger, renovated space that opens onto the hall. Since its inauguration, the Jeu de Paume
has boasted a bookshop that allows visitors to discover works that extend and explore its exhibition program,
with books available on the artists presented, as well as publications exploring the transversality of visual culture
and the image.
The bookshop boasts around five thousand international titles specialising in the
visual arts, contemporary photography and film, and new technologies. It also
houses a large selection of reviews and journals on topics such as aesthetics, art
theory and art history. Throughout the year, the bookshop organizes a variety of
book signings and discussions with artists and authors, in line with its exhibition
program and new publications. The bookshop also has a gift shop section, selling
items relating to the exhibitions, as well as a series of art objects, sold exclusively
at the Jeu de Paume.

▷ Open daily except Mondays. Tuesday from 11am to 9pm (late-night opening), Wednesday to
Sunday from 11am to 7pm
▷ Contact: +33 (0)1 47 03 12 36 / librairie@jeudepaume.org
▷ NB: All titles can be purchased on the bookshop’s Internet site
The Jeu de Paume Bookshop
www.librairiejeudepaume.org
© Jeu de Paume, photo Adrien Chevrot

CAFE - HANA BENTO

JAPANESE CUISINE

The Jeu de Paume has opened a new Japanese restaurant in its café space, called Hana Bento. The
restaurant offers a healthy lunchtime menu of traditional Japanese dishes ranging in price from €11 to €14.
The afternoon tea menu allows visitors to taste a selection of authentic Japanese sweets, accompanied by a
choice of teas imported from Kyoto. From 15 April until the end of the summer, Hana Bento opens its terrace
overlooking the large octagonal basin of the Tuileries Gardens. This suntrap is the ideal location to enjoy a
drink or an ‘Asahi’ and to sample some of the restaurant’s organic produce. Enjoy one of the capital’s most
beautiful gardens—the Tuileries—while watching the video art on display in the Boîte à Images.

▷ Open daily except Mondays. Tuesday from 11am to 9pm (late-night opening),
Wednesday to Sunday from 11am to 7pm
▷ My Daily Bento Habit: www.hanabento.com
▷ Bento, Onigiri, Donburi and Udon €3 to €14
▷ NB: the restaurant is accessible without paying the admission fee to the Jeu de Paume
museum space
▷ VISIT + BENTO / WEDNESDAYS AT 12.30pm
Benefit from this exceptional offer in association with the Hana Bento Café
Guided visits of the exhibitions at the Jeu de Paume, every Wednesday at 12.30pm.
Complimentary drink.
Hana Bento at the Petit Café © Hana Bento

33
 PRACTICAL
INFO

THE JEU DE PAUME : WWW.JEUDEPAUME.ORG

1 Place de la Concorde, 75008 Paris / +33 (0)1 47 03 12 50
Métro: Concorde 1, 8, 12 / Bus: 24, 42, 72, 73, 84, 94
Access via the Tuileries Gardens: staircase on the Rue de Rivoli
Disabled access, by car, via the Pont de Fer entrance (Seine-side)

OPENING TIMES
Tuesday (late-night opening): 11 am–9 pm / Wednesday to Sunday: 11 am–7 pm / Closed Mondays

ADMISSION
General admission €10 / Reduced rate €7.50

PRESS VISUALS
Copyright-free visuals can be downloaded
www.jeudepaume.org
Homepage: Press / User name: presskit / Password: photos

CONTACT INFORMATION
Press: Annabelle Floriant
+33 (0)1 47 03 13 22 / +33 (0)6 42 53 04 07 / annabellefloriant@jeudepaume.org
Communication: Anne Racine
+33 (0)1 47 03 13 29 / anneracine@jeudepaume.org

Discover the terrace

of the Café HANA BENTO
— Japanese Cuisine
overlooking
the Tuileries Gardens

VISIT + BENTO
WEDNESDAYS AT 12.30pm
Benefit from the exceptional
offer in association with the
Hana Bento Café
Guided visits of the exhibitions
at the Jeu de Paume, every
The Boîte à Images, the terrace of the Petit Café in summer, Wednesday at 12.30pm.
overlooking the Tuileries Gardens © Jeu de Paume, 2016 Complimentary drink.

1, PLACE DE LA CONCORDE · PARIS 8 E · M° CONCORDE

WWW.JEUDEPAUME.ORG

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