(Bernhard) Henri (Wilhelm) Berssenbrugge

(b Rotterdam, 13 July 1873; d Goirle, 4 May 1959). Dutch photographer. He first studied painting at the Akademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Rotterdam (1892-6). In 1901 he started to work as a self-taught photographer, taking pictures of farmers and gypsies in the province of North Brabant, a typical subject for a pictorial photographer at the time. From 1907 to 1917 he worked in Rotterdam as a photographer, taking pictures of the town and its inhabitants. Pictorially the photographs bear comparison with the work of the Dutch Impressionists, the Hague school and George Hendrik Breitner. Their picturesque quality is enhanced by the use of the gum bichromate and oil pigment processes (see PHOTOGRAPHY,

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Berssenbrugge, Henri (1873-1959), Dutch photographer. Born in Rotterdam, he studied painting at the Akademie van Beeldende Kunste (1892-96), but was self-taught in photography, setting up his first, shared, studio in 1907 in Rotterdam, then working in The Hague (1917-39). Both studios attracted the cultural elite of musicians, politicians, writers, and artists. As a portraitist, Berssenbrugge cultivated an unposed look, avoiding artistic backgrounds and eschewing retouching; although he also experimented with a variety of printing techniques, such as gum and oil printing, for his pictorialist compositions, including a method he called ‘Fototechnick’. However, his favourite subjects were street photographs and ordinary people. Beginning with farmers and gypsies in Brabant, he continued in Rotterdam when he opened his studio, moved on to other Dutch and Belgian villages, and to Paris, Milan, and London. Always seeking a natural, if slightly romanticized, view of everyday life, he sought his subjects in their own environment, whether urban alleyway or country village.

Berssenbrugge was close to the De Stijl movement and interested enough in modernist ideas and Neue Sachlichkeit to be asked to submit work for the 1929 Film und Foto exhibition in Stuttgart.

— Robert Ashby