Eva Besnyö (1910–2003) The Sensuous Image

22 May – 23 September 2012

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Eva Besnyö (1910–2003) is one of those women who found in photography not just a profession but also a form of liberation, and of those cosmopolitan avant-garde artists who chose Europe as their playing field for both play and work. Immediately after her photographic training in the studio of József Pécsi in Budapest, Eva Besnyö left the repressive, antiprogressive environment of her native Hungary for ever. Then aged 20, she decided, like her compatriots László Moholy-Nagy, Martin Munkácsi, György Kepes and Endre Friedmann (Robert Capa), to go to Berlin. As soon as she arrived in autumn 1930, she discovered there a dynamic photographic scene, open to experimentation and placed under the double sign of the New Vision and the New Objectivity, whose modern language would allow her to develop her personal style. Of Jewish origins, Eva Besnyö, who foresaw the threat of National Socialism, moved to the Netherlands in 1932 where she met again her companion the film director John Fernhout. There she was welcomed into the circle of international artists around the painter Charley Toorop, and rapidly became known in Amsterdam, where she had her own photographic studio. A solo exhibition at the Kunstzaal van Lier in 1933 gained the attention notably of the Dutch followers of the “Neues Bauen” (New Building), whose

architecture she recorded, in a highly personal manner, over a long period. The invasion of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany in 1940 marked a dramatic turning point in Eva Besnyö’s life. If she managed to come out of hiding in 1944, thanks to an invented genealogy, the traces of this experience would remain acute throughout the postwar decades. During the 1950s and 60s, her family life led her to abandon street photography for commissions. Finally, in the twilight of her career, the photographer militated in the Dolle Mina feminist movement, whose street actions she chronicled in the 1970s.With more than 120 vintage prints, some modern prints and numerous documents, this first French retrospective devoted to Eva Besnyö aims to show the public the different facets of her work, which is situated between New Vision, New Objectivity and social documentary, at the crossroads between poetry and political activism.

With other eyesIn 1929, during her second year of apprenticeship to József Pécsi, portrait and advertising photograper in Budapest, Eva Besnyö received the book of photographs Die Welt ist schön (The World is Beautiful), published a few months earlier in Munich. Its author, Albert Renger-Patzsch, is the precursor of New Objectivity in photography. While pictorialism

Untitled, 1933John Fernhout’s Shadow, Westkapelle, Zealand, The NetherlandsIara Brusse Collection, Amsterdam

Untitled, 1931Selfportrait, BerlinPrivate Collection, Berlin

reigned in Hungary, Eva Besnyö discovered the world with other eyes: from up close and under unexpected angles. With these new models in mind and her Rolleiflex in hand, she strode along the banks of the Danube in search of subjects and daring viewpoints, showing concern for a precise, close-up description of the most diverse objects, as well as a taste for fragmentation and for the repetition of the motif in the frame.As soon as she finished her studies, Eva Besnyö went to Berlin on the advice of the painter and photographer György Kepes - and against the wishes of her father who would have preferred that she chose Paris. The Berlin years, between 1930 and 1932, were for her those of a political and aesthetic awakening. Besides the influence of the revolutionary aesthetic of Russian cinema, she came under that of the New Vision, which took off with László Moholy-Nagy and his book Painting Photography Film (1925), using a whole stylistic grammar, advocating downward perspectives or low-angle shots, a taste for the isolated object and its repetition, as well as optical manipulations revealing an unknown, but very real, world. The activity of the town or the empty crossroads of Starnberger Straße, portraits and images of summer on the banks of Lake Wannsee count among Besnyö’s most successful compositions.

Worker and social photographyAt the Marxist Workers’ School in Berlin, Eva Besnyö schooled her social and political conscience. In her circle of friends gathered around fellow Hungarian György Kepes, she discussed passionately the role of the workers’ movements. In Berlin, as earlier in Budapest, Eva Besnyö took her camera to the principal sites of trade and business, where she photographed labourers hard at work: dockers on the Spree, coalmen in the street, fitters perched on ladders; in the city centre, she followed the workers at Alexanderplatz, in around 1930 the largest construction site in Europe. In Hungary, where she returned from time to time from Berlin, she carried out an extraordinary documentary project on the people of Kiserdö, in the suburbs of Budapest. Blessed with a heightened political awareness, she had already understood by 1932 that, as a Jew, her future was not in this country, and left Berlin for Amsterdam.

New Vision and New BuildingIn 1933, the solo show devoted by the Kunstzaal van Lier to Eva Besnyö just one year after her arrival in Amsterdam aroused the enthusiasm of numerous architects – her principal clients in the years to come. Mostly members of the group de 8 in Amsterdam and the radical abstract collective Opbouw in

Amsterdam, 1933Jordaan DistrictIara Brusse Collection, Amsterdam

Untitled, 1931Coalman, Berlin Stedelijk Museum Collection, Amsterdam. Acquired with the generous support of the Ministry of Welfare, Health and Cultural Affairs, The Hague

Rotterdam, they discerned in her images, which emphasised the functional side of objects, their structure and their texture, a suitable approach for explaining their buildings.Equipped with a Linhof 9 x 12 cm plate camera acquired especially for the purpose, Eva Besnyö went to building sites and photographed public and private buildings, notably the studios of the Dutch radio station AVRO at Hilversum, the Cineac cinema in Amsterdam and a summer house in Groet, in the north of the country. Become, in the 1930s, the preferred photographer of Dutch New Building, Eva Besnyö made most of her income at the time from architectural photography.

Bergen and WestkapelleFrom Amsterdam, where from 1935 to 1939 she shared a studio at Keizersgracht 522 with the photographer Carel Blazer and the architect Alexander Bodon, Eva Besnyö went regularly to Bergen and Westkapelle, two villages where many artists gathered. In Bergen, north of Amsterdam, Charley Toorop, Expressionist painter and mother of the film director John Fernhout, whom Eva had married in 1933, held an artistic salon in the De Vlerken studio. It was at Westkapelle, a centuries-old village built on a polder in Zealand, that the

family often spent their holidays. In this landscape shaped by the natural elements, Eva Besnyö returned to a free photographic practice, with views of vast beaches of white sand, of black silhouettes against a background of old windmills and cut-out shadows.

RotterdamIn July 1940, Eva Besnyö photographed the old town of Rotterdam destroyed by German airforce bombing. Far from classic photo-journalism, these images of ruins and traces of devastation – from which, in retrospect, she distanced herself – are today silent, bare statements of the wounds and scars of history.

Dolle MinaThe Dolle Mina feminist movement gathered both men and women, mainly from the student protest movement. In the 1970s, Eva Besnyö militated actively within it, alongside sympathisers of all ages. In a second phase, she focused on photographic documentation of the movement’s actions and activities, taking responsibility for sending out images daily, like a press agency.

Marion Beckers and Elisabeth Moortgat, curators of the exhibition

Untitled, 1934Summer House in Groet, North Holland, Merkelbach & Karsten architectsIara Brusse Collection, Amsterdam

chronology

1910Birth of Eva Besnyö in Budapest, daughter of Jewish lawyer Béla Besnyö (1877–1944) and Ilona, née Kelemen (1883–1981).1928–1930Apprenticeship in Budapest under József Pécsi, internationally renowned portrait and advertising photographer.1930–1932Lives in Berlin, where she is back in contact with the painter and photographer György Kepes, and works in the studios, first, of René Ahrlé, then, of Peter Weller, before setting up in her own right. The New Vision and Russian cinema influence her photography. The persecution of the Jews by the National Socialists force her to leave Berlin.1933–1935Becomes a member of the Association of Worker-Photographers. In Amsterdam, her husband, the film director John Fernhout, introduces her to a circle of politically engaged artists and intellectuals, gathered around the painter Charley Toorop and the film director Joris Ivens. A solo show at the Kunstzaal van Lier brings her to the attention of the architectural world. Publishes in the magazine de 8 en Opbouw.1936–1938Takes part in the exhibition against the Berlin Olympic Games ”D-O-O-D – De Olympiade Onder Dictatuur” (The Olympics under the Dictatorship), organised in Amsterdam by the BKVK, Association of artists for the protection of cultural rights. Supervises the organisation of the first international photography exhibition ”Foto ‘37” at the Stedelijk Museum.1941–1944As a Jew, she is no longer allowed to work as a press photographer. Joins the underground and, in 1944, is “Aryanised” in The Hague by the Service of Clarification of Litigious Ascendencies thanks to a fictional family tree. In addition, supports the illegal work of the PBC, Central Office of Identity Cards.1945Marries graphic designer Wim Brusse; birth of their son, Berthus. Co-founder of the GKf photographers’ association.1948 Birth of her daughter Iara Brusse.

1952The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam presents the exhibition ”Photographie” reuniting Eva Besnyö, Emmy Andriesse, Carel Blazer and Cas Oorthuys.1953Participates in the exhibition “Post-war European Photography” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.1955Participates in the international exhibition “The Family of Man”, organised by Edward Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.1958–1961Her photo essays include “People in Museums” and

“Women in Male Profession”.1970–1980Photojournalist and active member of the Dolle Mina feminist movement.1982 First retrospective ”Eva Besnyö - ’n halve eeuw werk” at the Amsterdam Historical Museum.1994–1999Receives the Piet Zwart Prize and the Oeuvre Prize in the Netherlands and the Erich Salomon Prize from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (German Photography Society).2003Eva Besnyö dies in Laren, near Hilversum.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––related events

Tuesday 22 May, 7pmz guided tour of the exhibition with the curators, Marion Beckers and Elisabeth Moortgat

Saturday 26 May and 30 June, 3.30pmz Children First!Visit and workshop “Points of view, shadows and projections”

Tuesday 28 August, 6pmz Young Visitors’ Tuesday Tours: tour of the exhibitions “Eva Besnyö” and “Rosa Barba” with a Jeu de Paume lecturer

z publication: Eva Besnyö (1910-2003), l’image sensible, directed by Marion Beckers and Elisabeth Moortgat, co-edition Somogy éditions d’art / Éditions du Jeu de Paume, bilingual French/English, 248 pages, 23 x 28 cm, €45

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translation: Natasha Edwards all photos: © Eva Besnyö/Maria Austria Instituut Amsterdam© Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2012

Jeu de Paume – extramural ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––

exhibition16 June – 4 November 2012 z Pierre Bourdieu: Pictures of Algeriaan elective affinityChâteau de Tours25 Avenue André-Malraux, 37000 Toursinformation +33 (0)2 47 70 88 46 Tuesday to Friday 2pm–6pmSaturday and Sunday 2.15pm–6pmadmission: €3; concessions: €1.50guided tours: Saturday at 3pm

forthcoming exhibition24 November 2012 – 2 June 2013 z Jacques-Henri LartigueChâteau de Tours

Jeu de Paume – Concorde ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––

exhibitions22 May – 23 September 2012z Eva Besnyö (1910-2003), The Sensuous Imagez Laurent Grasso: Uraniborgz Satellite Programme, Rosa Barba: Back-door Exposure

until 18 September 2012z Virtual Space, “Side Effects” cycle: Form@ts

forthcoming exhibitions16 October 2012 – 27 January 2013z Muntadas. Entre / Betweenz Manuel Álvarez Bravo, a Photographer on Watch z Satellite Programme, Filipa César

practical information1 Place de la Concorde, 75008 Parisaccess via the Tuileries Gardens, Rue de Rivoli entrancewww.jeudepaume.orghttp://lemagazine.jeudepaume.orginformation +33 (0)1 47 03 12 50Tuesday (late opening) 11am–9pmWednesday to Sunday 11am–7pmclosed Mondayz exhibitions: admission: €8.50; concessions: €5.50free admission to the exhibitions of the Satellite ProgrammeYoung Visitor’s Tuesday: free admission for students and visitors under 26 every last Tuesday of the month from 5pm to 9pmz guided tours and workshops: free admission on presentation of the exhibition ticket of the dayTours for individual visitors with guides from the Jeu de PaumeWednesday and Saturday at 12.30pmFamily ToursSaturday at 3.30pm (except last Saturday of the month)by reservation on +33 (0)1 47 03 12 41/rendezvousenfamille@jeudepaume.org

Children First!visit and workshop for 7 to 11 year olds every last Saturday of the month at 3.30pmby reservation on +33 1 47 03 04 95/lesenfantsdabord@jeudepaume.org

Young Visitors’ Tuesday Tours every last Tuesday of the month at 6pm

It gratefully acknowledges support from Neuflize Vie, its global partner.

Neuflize Vie

The Jeu de Paume receives a subsidy from the Ministry of Culture and Communication.

Les Amis du Jeu de Paume contribute to its activities.

It received support from the Embassy of the Kingdom of The Netherlands, Paris.

In partnership with:

This exhibition was organised by Das Verborgene Museum, Berlin, in collaboration with the Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, and the Jeu de Paume, Paris.