Edward van der Elsken

(b Amsterdam, 10 March 1925; d Amsterdam, 20 Dec 1990). Dutch photographer and film maker. He was mainly self-taught in photography, but he took a correspondence course from the Nederlandse Fotovakschool, The Hague. From 1947 to 1950 he worked as a freelance photographer in Amsterdam before moving to Paris. In the 1950s he produced highly subjective images of the district of Saint-Germain. This series, which was shown at various international exhibitions, was published in book form as Love on the Left Bank (Amsterdam, 1954). The subject is the 'Lost Generation' of the 1950s, depicted in the form of a love story with images and short texts. Thereafter he photographed people all over the world. These travels often resulted in books such as Bagara, Central Africa (Amsterdam, 1959), a report about the people and their way of life; Sweet Life (Amsterdam, 1963), images produced during a 14-month world tour; and The Discovery of Japan (Amsterdam, 1988), which contains photographs from his many visits to that country.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

Elsken, Ed van der (1925-90), Dutch photographer, born in Amsterdam. His interest in photography was aroused by Weegee's Naked City (1945). He moved to Paris in 1950, where he photographed the bohemian scene—bars, artists, drop-outs, and drug dealers in the Odéon district, often at night. Edward Steichen included eighteen of these images in the 1953 New York exhibition Post War European Photography, and on Steichen's advice the work became a noir narrative, centred on Vali Meyers, an Australian girl drug addict. Published as Love on the Left Bank (1954), it was atmospheric, cinematic, autobiographical, becoming his most famous work.

Returning to Amsterdam in 1954, he worked as a freelance photographer and film-maker, emphasizing his personal interests and domestic life. He published seventeen books, integrating his graphic and photographic style, especially Jazz (1959) and Sweet Life (1966), following a trip round the world with his family. Travel to Africa, Hong Kong, and Japan for magazine work produced more books. Van der Elsken's unconventional ideas clearly constrained the development of his career. The film Bye (1990) movingly documents his decline and death from cancer. His last words on film confirmed his approach: ‘Show the world who you are.’

— Robert Ashby