Exhibition Ed van der Elsken in the Rijksmuseum

Ed van der Elsken

He is one of the most beloved Dutch photographers of the twentieth century. But how did his pictures come about? What did he see that others missed? And what did he set aside, sometimes for years, before he was satisfied?

Into his studio

The exhibition Ed van der Elsken. Up Close takes you into his studio. Since 2019, the Rijksmuseum and the Nederlands Fotomuseum have looked after his personal archive together, and for the first time the material has been examined in full.

Alongside his best-known photographs, you'll see his handwritten notes, contact sheets covered in red marks, darkroom experiments and newly discovered book dummies.

Searching, refining, starting over

Across nine galleries you follow him from his first reportages in the early 1950s to the making of his last photo book in the late 1980s. You see him searching, refining, starting over. Travelling to Cuba and Japan with the same curious gaze as in Amsterdam. Mulling over books that sometimes came into being, and sometimes never did.

In film fragments you hear him speak in his own words. Free-spirited, headstrong, and at times unsure.

A thousand attempts

What remains is the picture of a maker who was never quite done. Someone who didn't just record what was happening, but kept searching for a form that matched what he felt. He changed Dutch photography for good. Not through one perfect picture, but through a thousand attempts.