Ed van der Elsken: Lust for Life

The Nederlands Fotomuseum, which manages the complete archive of Van der Elsken’s work, has recently successfully completed the enormous project of restoring 42,000 of Van der Elsken’s color slides, safeguarding the work of one of The Netherland’s most influential photographers for future generations. This achievement will be celebrated with the retrospective exhibition Lust for Life | Ed van der Elsken in Colour and this comprehensive publication.

Photographer and filmmaker Ed van der Elsken (1925-1990) gained global fame with his black-and-white photography, however, he worked in color for a significant part of his working life. He began this in the early fifties during his stay in Paris. In the late sixties he switched almost completely to colour for several audio-visual pieces and in his travel reports for the weekly publication Revu and the monthly Avenue. His most important books in color are EYE LOVE YOU (1977), Hallo! A new Ed van der Elsken (1978) and Adventures on the Land (1980).

As well as space for relatively unknown and never before published photos, there is also attention for the restoration of the 42,000 slides carried out by the Nederlands Fotomuseum between 2016 and 2018.