A unique new edition of Ed van der Elsken’s photobook Amsterdam! For this landmark of Dutch photography, more than 300 original photographic negatives were scanned and processed by the Nederlands Fotomuseum. The design was entrusted to the Anthon Beeke Collectief, which retained the original layout by award-winning designer Anthon Beeke.
The re-release of Amsterdam! was accompanied by an exhibition at the Amsterdam City Archives. From 6 June through 14 September, more than 100 original prints of photographs included in the book were exhibited there.
A citywide print campaign promoted the exhibition and the book. The Amsterdam! campaign began with Bouwinvest installing a several-metre-high photo wall on Nieuwendijk, near the Passage, displaying 14 photographs from the book at large scale. Behind the wall, Bouwinvest was renovating the three former C&A buildings.
Ed van der Elsken (1925–1990), the ‘enfant terrible’ of Dutch photography, was a talented and socially engaged photographer and filmmaker. His photographs immediately reveal what mattered to him in life: courage, individualism, and freedom.
Van der Elsken was the first Dutch street photographer able to hold his own internationally alongside leading figures in the genre such as Robert Frank, William Klein, Daido Moriyama, and Garry Winogrand.
Few people know that a typical Van der Elsken photograph was shaped to a significant degree in the darkroom, where he determined its mood. By highlighting a figure or making façades or a sky more threatening, he influenced how the image registered with the viewer.
All the work Van der Elsken still performed in the darkroom in the seventies was digitally reconstructed from new scans of the negatives. It was painstaking work, but the result was exceptional. Amsterdam!, which appeared in two editions in the eighties, had never before been published in such a fine edition.
The photobook Amsterdam! from 1979 brought together his finest early black-and-white photographs: poverty in the post-war years, the Jewish Quarter around Waterlooplein, the riots of the sixties, many beautiful young people, and the demolition of the old city centre.
Because of Van der Elsken’s international reputation, Amsterdam! was also published in an English edition for the first time.
Amsterdam! Old Photographs 1947–1970 — Ed van der Elsken
Pages listed in the article: 240
Price listed in the article: € 64.00
Publisher listed in the article: Uitgeverij Bas Lubberhuizen
