Ed saved for posterity! Restoration of Ed van der Elsken’s colour slides now complete
The Nederlands Fotomuseum has successfully completed its restoration of over 42,000 colour slides by photographer Ed van der Elsken. The completion of the vast project means that the colour work of one of the Netherlands’ most influential photographers has been saved for posterity. To celebrate the feat, an exhibition entitled Lust for Life | Ed van der Elsken in Colour will open at the Nederlands Fotomuseum on 24 May 2019. Lust for Life will be the first ever major retrospective of Ed van der Elsken’s work in colour and will show how he looked at the world and charmed his subjects.
The Nederlands Fotomuseum holds Van der Elsken’s complete archive of negatives and slides. He was one of the first Dutch photo-journalists to whole-heartedly embrace colour photography. The vibrant humanity that he loved to celebrate was best portrayed in colour. He blazed a trail in Dutch photography by building up a unique and substantial oeuvre in colour alongside his well-known monochrome photography. In the eighties, a host of Dutch photographers followed in his footsteps. Today, however, his colour photographs are far less well-known to the general public.
Exhibition Lust for Life
Lust for Life will show visitors how Ed van der Elsken looked at the world and charmed his subjects. The exhibition will include both familiar images and material previously unseen by the public. It will also share new knowledge that has emerged during the restoration. The successful Eye Love You multimedia presentation already shown at the De Parade travelling theatre festival will reappear in the exhibition in a new form.
The exhibition Lust for Life has been made possible by the Blockbusterfonds.
Project partners
The museum is grateful to the support of the following partners:
Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap | Gemeente Rotterdam | BankGiro Loterij | Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds | Wertheimer Fonds Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Wertheimer Stichting, Dr. Hendrik Muller’s Vaderlands Stichting, Elise Mathilde Fonds, Ars Donandi/W.J.O. de Vries Fonds, PostNL, Jan de Bont, individual donors, Fotomuseum Ambassadeurs and Friends.
