1925 — 1990
Ed Van der Elsken, born in Amsterdam, was a Dutch postwar photographer and filmmaker whose highly striking work, shot in Europe, Africa and Asia, earned him a reputation as the enfant terrible of photography in his homeland. Working as a photographer for the monthly Avenue, Van der Elsken would travel to Japan, Hong Kong and the Central African Republic. He rejected the idea of his own photography as journalism, on the basis that his perspectives were subjective, not objective, and he trained his lens on those whom he considered to have character.
In Paris, Van der Elsken worked for a time in the Magnum Photos darkrooms, printing for Capa and Bresson. For the last twenty years of his life he resided in the Dutch countryside, continuing to travel, publish books (at least twenty across his career), make films (upwards of thirty-five) and use his camera. Van der Elsken died from prostate cancer in 1990. His work, provocative and entirely unconstrained by rules or norms, lives on.
