Ed V.D. Elsken

Ed van der Elsken, born in 1925 in Amsterdam, was a photographer and filmmaker. He studied stone-cutting at Amsterdam’s Van Tetterode Steenhouwerij from 1937 onwards, aiming to become a sculptor. After the war, however, he discovered works of sensationalist photographer Weegee and developed his wish to pursue photography as a metier. In 1950 he moved to Paris where he started printing for Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ernst Haas and Robert Capa at Magnum Photos. After spending four years in Paris, where he develops his first photographic novel Love of the Left Bank (1956), he returned to Amsterdam from where he travelled to Central Africa, Hong Kong and Japan. Ed van der Elsken’s work is throughout subjective and dedicated to his own life and the encounters he made during his travels. His photographs show bright moments as well as darker notions of human life. In 1990 he died in Edam in the Netherlands.