[alleen in Engels beschikbaar]
Film-maker Joris Ivens was instrumental in shaping John Fernhout's
development. Between 1928 and 1938, and under his mentor's guidance,
the young Fernhout advanced from 'dogsbody' to cameraman.
He was involved in two of Ivens' most important films, Spanish Earth (1937) and The Four Hundred Million (1939), but had already begun to direct independently in 1934.
Fernhout was strongly influenced by Ivens' films and social engagement.
It was Ivens, too, who encouraged him to study photography at the Agfa
school in Berlin in 1930. Fernhout's first stills were for an Ivens
film.
Fernhout's most important photographs date from the period between 1930
and 1934. In Berlin he met his first wife, the Jewish-Hungarian
photographer Eva Besnyö. The couple settled in the Netherlands in 1932.
They were members of the Vereeniging van Arbeiders-Fotografen
(association of workers-photographers) and made two photo-reportages
which reflected the association's aims.
In 1932 Fernhout and Besnyö went to Budapest to photograph the slums of
Kiserdö, a reportage which was published in Het Leven. And in 1934 he
photographed the riots in the Jordaan, a working-class district of
Amsterdam; some of these pictures were published in the brochure Roode
Juli that year.
John Fernhout was first and foremost a cameraman and film-maker. He
took most of his photographs in relation to a film production or in
private situations. They show that he had a good eye for photography
while resorting to visual means and compositions directly related to
his cinematic knowledge and experience.
His stills are a valuable source of information about his own film
oeuvre and that of Ivens. The prewar private photographs are of
particular interest because of his links with the avant-garde artistic
milieu of the period around his mother, the painter Charley Toorop.
Several of Fernhout's photographs are considered highlights of New
Photography.
|
