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Bertien van Manen
2021

IN MEMORIAM

BERTIEN VAN MANEN

Amsterdam, 27 May 2024 – Yesterday, at the age of 89, the renowned Dutch documentary photographer Bertien van Manen has peacefully passed away in the presence of her family.

 

Bertien van Manen started her career in 1975, at forty years of age, as a fashion photographer. Inspired by Robert Frank’s The Americans, depicting a raw side of the United States, she turned to documentary photography. Bertien travelled the world, taking photos of people she met and often befriended. Fluent in Russian, she was one of the first documentary photographers to enter the former Soviet Union after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Her photographs of Russian people, made during five years travelling the former Soviet Union, are documented in the books Hundred Summers Hundred Winters (1994) and Let’s sit down before we go (2011). Van Manen travelled and documented much of the world, including Eastern Europe, the Western Sahara and the Appalachians. Her travels trough China are captured in the book East Wind West Wind (2001).

 

Van Manen enjoyed a Dutch privileged upbringing in Heerlen, where her father was an engineer in the State coal mines. She felt closely connected to the coal miners, whose homes and families she found to be warm and friendly. Later, she documented mine workers in different places, including Sheffield, Siberia and the Appalachians. She often stayed in close contact with her subjects, sending them photographs and exchanging letters.

 

Bertien van Manen is known for her intimate yet “raw” photography, showing people as they are, without any retouching or amending any apparent irregularities in her photos. She used a snapshot camera, to allow closer contact and to be able to look her subjects in the eyes while photographing. Van Manen has been a pioneer and an example for many.

 

Bertien van Manen has left a legacy of photographic works, exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Fotomuseum Winterthur, among others. Bertien’s work is found in major public collections.

 

The Bertien van Manen Stichting (foundation) will safeguard Bertien’s legacy, in close collaboration with the galleries representing her. We will miss her dearly.

 

For more information and high res images please contact Iris Bergman, chair of the Bertien van Manen foundation. Email: [email protected] Telephone: 0031646020871

 

Bertien van Manen is represented by Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam, Robert Morat Gallery in Berlin, Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York and Galerie In Camera in Paris.

BOOKS

I am the only woman there - 2024

Bertien van Manen (1935-2024) photographed in the 1970’s female labor migrants, and the wives of labor migrants, who came to the Netherlands in the context of family reunification. She portrayed Turkish, Moroccan, Tunisian, Spanish, Yugoslavian, Portugese, Greek and Italian women. At home, work, parties and leisure activities, often struggling to survive in a foreign culture. These photographs resulted in her first book ‘Vrouwen te Gast’, published in 1979. In 2024 Bertien revisited her own photographs and texts to make a new, more contemporary, edit of her first work. For ‘I am the only woman there’ she updated the book with new discovered photographs from her archive and new texts, by herself and Kim Knoppers.

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I am the only woman there

Gluckauf - 2023

Bertien van Manen grew up in Heerlen, the centre of the eastern part of the former Dutch coal mining region, where her father worked as an engineer for the State Mines. This publication brings together photographs Bertien van Manen made in different mining towns: Wakefield and New Sharlston, Yorkshire (UK, 1970s), Most (CZ, 1980s), the Appalachian Mountains (US, 1980-1990s), and Apanas, Siberia (RU, 1990s).

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Gluckauf

Archive - 2021

Since the 1970s, Dutch photographer Bertien van Manen has created intimate and poignant photographs of commonplace scenes, produced during extended trips to Europe, America, China and the former Soviet Union. Van Manen has established herself as a unique voice in documentary photography, her visual language imbued with empathy and respect for the everyday lives of her subjects. This book presents an extensive overview of Van Manen’s work, alongside diary entries and previously unpublished selections from her archive.

The book has been edited and designed by renowned Dutch designer Hans Gremmen to offer a unique insight and overview of Van Manen’s history, establishing this publication as the ultimate reference work on her oeuvre.

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Archive

I Will Be Wolf - 2017

In December 1975 Dutch photographer Bertien van Manen made a series of black-and-white photographs capturing daily life in metropolitan Hungary. I will be Wolf brings together many of these beautiful and never-before-seen images with the editorial direction of renowned British photographer Stephen Gill. Her snapshots of commuters, grocers, chemists, café workers, and street vendors contain all the hallmarks of a bygone era, before the grip of globalisation was able to make its mark on the country. Imbued with an air of ambivalent nostalgia, the book takes its title from the poem Grief by the 20th century Hungarian poet József Attila.

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I Will Be Wolf

Beyond Maps and Atlases - 2016

Where can it be found again,
An elsewhere world, beyond

Maps and atlases,
Where all is woven into

And of itself, like a nest
Of crosshatched grass blades?

Seamus Heaney from the poem ‘Herbal’ in ‘Human Chain’

At first, working in Ireland I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. My husband had died.
I dispensed with the people and reflected on the atmosphere. I was guided by a
feeling and a search, a longing for some kind of meaning in a place of myths and legends. There was mystery and endlessness at the edge of a land beyond which is nothing
but a vast expanse.

Bertien van Manen
Amsterdam, September 15th 2015

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Beyond Maps and Atlases

Moonshine - 2014

'...Van Manen’s point and shoot style of photography is one of allowing imperfections in technique stand. In many of her images there is often an unearthly quality to the light; for instance the unnatural glow of the girls’ back in the book’s cover image as she runs from the camera; in an early black-and-white image of four children sitting on a sofa, the two girls in the center dissolve in the glow of the window light; fiery light leaks stain an image of a man in a coffin at a funeral.

...It is said that in the distilling of ‘moonshine’ whisky, the clearer the liquid looks the more powerful the alcohol. In Bertien van Manen’s Moonshine the opposite may be true, imperfection handled with a fierce respect and admiration has allowed for a stronger more powerful drink than few have been able to produce...’

Jeffrey Ladd
TimeLightBox

‘...It wasn’t until I spent some time with the work that it really began resonating with me. I see my own life and family in many of these photographs.’

Roger May
Appalachian photographer

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Moonshine

EASTER AND OAK TREES - 2013

‘....It is surprising to see how in essence all the qualities of her riper work are present in these family-snapshots: the lyrical looseness, the sensuality and the melancholy but also a feeling for balance and composition. They seem free, sturdy improvisations on themes, which later, in ‘A Hundred Summers a Hundred Winters’ or in ‘East Wind West Wind’ more outspokenly took shape. Of course especially the contactprints thanks to their grafic imperfections have the seductive aura of authenticity but much more interestitng is the search for form, however spontanuous and intimate the scenes may be. This is most explicitely visible in the attention for the pose. In a single case this is purposefully being created but more often it is very precisely being seen and captured in all its artless liveliness and almost painfull beauty.’

Hripsimé Visser

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EASTER AND OAK TREES

LET’S SIT DOWN BEFORE WE GO - 2011

The photos in this book have been made between 1991 and 2009 in Russia, Moldova, Kazachstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Tatarstan, Georgia. The editing and sequencing of the images have been done by Stephen Gill.

The title of these series, ‘Lets’s sit down before we go’, is a metaphor for the subject of the images. An old habit in Russia. Before leaving for a long journey, people sit down for a moment and think about where they will be going and why...

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LET’S SIT DOWN BEFORE WE GO

GIVE ME YOUR IMAGE - 2006

Bertien van Manen has travelled through countless countries in Europe to photograph photographs. She had to enter dwellings and souls, and also the dwellings of souls and the souls of the dwellings. This was a study of interior photography -if by ’interior’ one means something more than simply the inside of a room- say, the inner essence, the core of human being.

Yuri Andrukhovych

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GIVE ME YOUR IMAGE

East wind, west wind - 2001

‘...To penetrate the privacy of other people’s lives would take a great deal of tact anywhere. For a Dutch photographer to have found her way into the intimate corners of Chinese lives must have taken more than that. China, for all its hospitality, can be an intensely private place.
It is traditionally a country of walled cities, walled palaces, walled gardens, and walled family compounds. The family is still the basic unit that dominates most Chinese lives.

And Bertien van Manen has penetrated those units, to show us how Chinese live, eat, touch, talk, and sleep in private. To have done this she must have been not only tactful, put persistant, curious and symphathetic. You can tell from her photographs that she was trusted. Even if she never sees them again, you feel that her subjects are her friends.

Bertien van Manen’s pictures do not have an overtly political message. She is an artist, not an activist. But the political history of China is visible in almost every photograph...’

Ian Buruma

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East wind, west wind

A hundred summers, a hundred winters - 1994

‘...Through her excellent photographs and her inquiring and humanistic temperament, and with powerfull artistic expression, Bertien van Manen shows what historians, writers, sociologists and political scientists argue, that there exist at least two Russias. There is the official, imperial and external Russia, known to us from newspaper headlines, and the one within, the hidden, poor Russia of the anonymous, ordinary people of whose existence Bertien van Manen’s moving and revealing album tells.’

Ryszard Kapuscinski

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A hundred summers, a hundred winters

BOOKS GROUP

2021
'Nachbilder' Eine Foto Text Anthologie Zürcher Hochschule und Fotomuseum Winterthur
2018
'The Low Countries', page 256 'Intimacy without Borders' by Tineke Reijnders
2016
'A Matter of Memory: Photography as Object in the Digital Age' George Eastman Museum
2016
'Conversations 2' Rémi Coignet
2015
‘Photography at MoMA 1960 to Now’ The Museum of Modern Art New York
2015
‘Une Collection’ MEP Paris
2015
‘The Chinese Photobook’ by Martin Parr and Wassink Lundgren
2014
'The Photographers’ Playbook’ Aperture
2013
‘Le Regardeur’ Editions Xavier Barral
2013
‘Lost Home’ Super Labo’s Lost Home project, a set of ten artist books by Harvey Benge
2012
‘Thinking photography, Using photography’ by Jan Erik Lundström and Liv Stoltz, Centrum för Fotografi
2012
‘The Dutch Photo Book Since 1945’ by Frits Gierstberg and Rik Suermondt
2009
Fotografie in het Stedelijk de Geschiedenis van een collectie
2008
MoMA HIghlights since 1980
2007
Photographies Modernes et Comtemporaines La Collection Neuflize Vie
2007
Dutch Eyes New History of Photography in the Netherlands
2006
‘Netherlands Now, L’école du Nord’, MEP Paris
2006
‘The Photobook’, a History vol II by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, Phaidon
2006
Contemporary Dutch Photography, Kumho Museum of Art Seoul
2005
‘In Sight’ Contemporary Dutch Photography from the Collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
2003
‘Gestes’ Printemps de septembre ed. Actes Sud
2003
‘Tales from a globalizing world’ by Daniel Schwartz Ed. Thames Hudson
2003
Citibank Photography Prize 2003
2002
‘Blink’ 100 photographers 10 curators 10 writers’ Phaidon Press

EXHIBITIONS SOLO (A SELECTION)

2020
In camera Paris France
2020
Gabriel Rolt HE.RO Amsterdam the Netherlands
2019
'De collectie belicht' Nederlands Fotomuseum curated by Bertien van Manen the Netherlands
2018
'I will be Wolf' Gabriel Rolt Amsterdam the Netherlands
2016
In camera Paris 'Beyond Maps and Atlases' France
2016
Photo London 'Beyond Maps and Atlases' UK
2016
Post Tokio 'Beyond Maps and Atlases' Japan
2016
'Beyond Maps and Atlases' Landskrona Art Gallery Sweden
2016
Paris Photo 'Beyond Maps and Atlases' France
2016
Gallery Belfast Exposed, Belfast Ireland
2016
Boston Museum of Fine Arts USA
2015
Gallery Pedro Alfacinha Lisbon Portugal
2014
Paris Photo Los Angeles with Gabriel Rolt Paramount Studio's L.A. USA
2014
Landskrona Art Gallery with Rinko Kawauchi and Nan Goldin Sweden
2013
Galerie Gabriel Rolt Amsterdam The Netherlands
2012
Yancey Richardson Gallery New York USA
2012
FOAM Amsterdam the Netherlands
2012
Galerie Robert Morat Berlin Germany
2011
in camera galerie Paris France
2009
LX Factory Lisbon Portugal
2008
Museum fur Gestaltung Zurich Switzerland
2008
Yancey Richardson Gallery New York USA
2008
Galerie Robert Morat Hamburg Germany
2008
Museum Ludwig Budapest Hungary
2008
Fotohof Salzburg Austria
2008
Prague Festival of Art Czech Republic
2007
Central European House of Photography Bratislava Slovakia
2006
'Mois européen de la photographie' CNA Luxembourg
2006
Yancey Richardson Gallery New York USA
2006
'de Hallen' Haarlem the Netherlands
2006
Galerie van Zoetendaal Amsterdam the Netherlands
2005
MoMA New York 'New Photography' New York USA
2005
Photo España Circulo de Bellas Artes Madrid Spain
2005
Walter Gropius Bau Berlin, Berlin Photofest 'After the Fact' Germany
2004
Photo Museum Ulm Germany
2003
Yancey Richardson Gallery New York USA
2003
The Photographers Gallery, Citibank Photographers Prize 2003 London UK
2003
Centre Photographique d'Ile-de-France Pontault-Combault France
2003
Museum Kunst Palast Düsseldorf Germany
2003
Photo España Madrid Spain
2003
Printemps de septembre Toulouse France
2002
Galerie du Jour, Agnès b Mois de la Photo Paris France
2002
'East Wind West Wind' Photographers Gallery London UK
1995
Photographers Gallery London UK
1994
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam the Netherlands

EXHIBITIONS GROUP (A SELECTION)

2021
'Paris Photo' In Camera Galerie
2017
Paris Photo Robert Morat 'I will be Wolf' France
2017
'Unseen' Gabriel Rolt Amsterdam the Netherlands
2017
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam 'I am a native foreigner' the Netherlands
2017
Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam Jan Cremer the Netherlands
2017
Art Rotterdam (exhibitor Caroline O'Breen) the Netherlands
2016
George Eastman Museum Rochester USA
2015
Foto Istanbul Turkey
2014
in camera Paris France
2014
Paris Photo at Robert Morat 'Moonshine' France
2014
Gana Art Center with Boris Michaelov, Nan Goldin and others Seoul South Korea
2014
'The Thing Itself' Yancey Richardson New York USA
2014
'Us and Them' Noorderlicht Groningen the Netherlands
2014
Paris Photo at Yancey Richardson France
2013
Moscow Biennale Russia
2013
'Lost Home', Colette rue st Honoré Paris France
2013
Andrea Meislin Gallery New York 'Perchance to dream' USA
2013
Fotomuseum Winterthur 'This Infinite World' selection Paul Graham Switzerland
2013
Paris Photo at in camera galerie 'Let's sit down before we go' France
2013
Paris Photo at Robert Morat 'Easter and Oak Trees' France
2013
'From Holland with Love' Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam the Netherlands
2012
Paris Photo 2012 France
2012
Dutch Doc Award Tropenmuseum Amsterdam the Netherlands
2012
Unseen Photo Fair Amsterdam the Netherlands
2012
Centre culturel de Liège 8ème Biennale Internationale des Arts Visuels Belgium
2011
NMWA and Bank of America USA
2011
MoMA Steichen Gallery New York USA
2011
Paris Photo France
2010
Incognito Yancey Richardson New York USA
2010
Minneapolis Institute of Arts USA
2010
Fototriennale Esslingen Germany
2009
Paris Photo France
2009
Bildmuseet Umea Sweden
2008
Bucharest Biennale Romania
2007
Howard Gilman Gallery, 'Hidden in Plain Sight'/Contemporary Photographs from the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York USA
2007
'Scenes and Traces' Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam the Netherlands
2007
'InsideOut' Collections of Amsterdam Institutes FOAM Amsterdam the Netherlands
2006
'Op het tweede gezicht' Frans Hals Museum Haarlem the Netherlands
2006
'L'esprit du Nord' Maison Europèene de la Photographie Paris France
2006
'Frames revisited' De Hallen, Frans Hals Museum Haarlem the Netherlands
2006
'Dutch insight' Kumho Museum of Art Seoul South Korea
2006
'Stories, Histories'- from the Collection of the Fotomuseum Winterthur Suisse
2005
'In Sight' Contemporary Dutch Photography' Art Institute of Chicago USA
2005
'Marks of Honour' FOAM and van Zoetendaal Amsterdam the Netherlands
2005
Palais des Beaux Arts Bruxelles Belgium
2005
'Récits d'une Mondialisation' Palais des Nations Genève Switzerland
2004
Artist Opening, Museum of Modern Art New York USA
2004
'Cold Play' Présence Suisse Paris Photo Paris France
2004
'Take Five' Huis Marseille Amsterdam the Netherlands
2004
Dunaujváros ICA Budapest Hungary
2004
'D Foto' San Sébastian Spain
2004
'Ce que j'ai vu' Fondation Cartier Bresson Paris France
2004
'LINK' Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam the Netherlands
2003
Fundación Carlos de Amberes Madrid Spain
2003
Centre national de la photographie Jeu de Paume Paris France
2003
Photos from the collection Fotomuseum Winterthur Switzerland
2003
'Zwart Wit Kleur' Amsterdams Historisch Museum Amsterdam the Netherlands
2003
Fotomuseum Den Haag the Netherlands

PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE COLLECTION OF (A SELECTION)

George Eastman House / International Museum of Photography USA
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam the Netherlands
The Museum of Modern Art New York USA
The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York USA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art USA
The Baltimore Museum of Art USA
The Metropolitan Museum of Photography Tokio Japan
Maison Européenne de la Photographie Paris France
Centre national des arts plastiques Paris France
The Swiss Foundation for Photography Switzerland
Fotomuseum Winterthur Winterthur Switzerland
Fotomuseum Antwerpen Belgium
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam the Netherlands
Collection ABN-Amro / La Salle Chicago USA
Huis Marseillle Amsterdam the Netherlands
Frans Hals Museum / de Hallen Haarlem the Netherlands
La Collection Neuflize Vie France
MoCP Collection Chicago USA

PRIZES

2019
Nominated for Hasselblad Prize 2019
2018
'I will be Wolf' shortlisted for Arles Book Prize 2018
2014
Longlisted for the Deutsche Börse Prize
2012
‘Let’s sit down before we go’ shortlisted for Dutch Doc Award
2008
Longlisted for the Deutsche Börse Prize
2005
MoMA New York 'New Photography' New York USA
2003
Shortlisted for the Citibank Photography Prize (Deutsche Borse Foundation)
 
David Röell Prijs / Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Prijs voor Beeldende Kunst
 
Maria Austria prize
 
Kees Scherer prize

PRESS (A SELECTION)

2019
Live interview Fotogasten Nederlands Fotomuseum
2019
'Union' Issue No 14 Spring/Summer 2019 Tokio, Japan
2017
VPRO Gids Colin van Heezik 'Hert en Wolf' 13 december
2016
Trouw Lodewijk Dros Beeldboek 'Beyond Maps and Atlases' 27 februari
2016
Vrij Nederland Mischa Cohen 'Uitzicht op het Grote Niks' 6 februari
2015
Aperture 220 Fall 2015
2015
Journal ESQUIRE Moskou August
2014
British Journal of Photography November Michael Grieve
2014
Gup 43 November
2014
'My best shot' The Guardian July 24
2014
NRC Handelsblad Rianne van Dijck Op de huid zitten van 'hillbillies' in Kentucky 20 juni
2013
june Hotshoe International
2013
EXIT #49 Autobiography - Issue February March April 2013
2012
Foto 6 Moscow June 2012, page 104-111
2012
Aperture 208 Fall 2012, page 46-53
2012
VOGUE Nederland Nummer één
2012
Vrij Nederland 24 maart
2012
VPRO Gids 24 maart
2012
Fotografiska, Stockholm 02/2012
2012
FOAM Blog Bertien van Manen Interview part 1 part 2 part 3
2007
P.S. Parool Mark Moorman 20 januari
2006
'De Avonden' Radio broadcasting 27 december
2006
The NewYorker January 30
2005
Art World Shanghai
2005
Tank Magazine Volume 4 - Issue 3
2005
Draft Autumn
2005
Vogue Paris November
2005
De Volkskrant Observatorium 31 december

CONTACT

 

Bertien van Manen

-----

Iris Bergman

Studio Manager

[email protected]

+31(0)646020871

COURTESY

Annet Gelink Gallery Amsterdam

[email protected]

 

Yancey Richardson Gallery New York / San Francisco

[email protected]

 

Galerie Robert Morat Berlin

[email protected]

 

in camera galerie Paris

[email protected]