Introduction
Bertien van Manen (Den Haag, 1942) is a Dutch photographer who makes primarily environmental portraiture and works in the photobook format. She uses an inexpensive snapshot camera to take photos of people she meets as she feels that these cameras allow her subjects to consider "me as a tourist or friend, who liked to take pictures.” She has photographed extensively in China and the former Soviet Union. Van Manen's work has been exhibited internationally and won awards.
Life and work
Van Manen grew up in a Dutch mining community in the 1950s. Her photography career began in 1977 as a fashion photographer, though only for one and a half years, after studying French language and literature at the University of Leiden.
Inspired by Robert Frank's book The Americans (1958), van Manen switched from fashion photography to a more documentary approach. She worked on commission for long running projects, such as A Hundred Summers, A Hundred Winters (1991) from the post-Soviet states, East Wind, West Wind (2001) from China, Give me your Image (2006) from Europe, Moonshine (2014) with photographs of miners in Yorkshire and the Appalachian Mountains, and Beyond Maps and Atlases (2016) from Ireland.
Publications
- A Hundred Summers, A Hundred Winters. Amsterdam: De Verbeelding, 1994. Photographs of people in Russia.
- East Wind West Wind. Amsterdam: De Verbeelding, 2001. Photographs of people in China.
- In Moldova. Aorta Chisinau, 2005.
- Give me your Image. Göttingen: Steidl, 2006. Photographs of people in Europe.
- Let's Sit Down Before we go. London: Mack, 2011.
- Easter and Oak Trees. London: Mack, 2013.
- Moonshine. London: Mack, 2014. Photographs made in Yorkshire and the Appalachian Mountains.
- Beyond Maps and Atlases. London: Mack, 2016. ISBN 9781910164433. Photographs made in Ireland.
Collections
Van Manen's work is held in the following public collections:
- Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
- Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris,
- Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland
- Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam
- Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
- Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris
- Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo
- Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD