Bertien Manen

Background

Van Manen grew up in a Dutch mining community in the 1950s and began in 1977 as a fashion photographer, after studying French language and literature at the University of Leiden.

Career

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. Inspired by Robert Frank"s book The Americans, 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", which features photos of the former Soviet Union, "East Wind, West Wind", which has photos from China, and "Give me your Image", which has photos from Europe.

Her 2014 work, "Moonshine", features photographs of miners in Yorkshire and the Appalachians.

Her photos can be found in such collections as: Louisiana Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum of Modern Art New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, San Francisco Moma San Francisco, Centre national des arts plastiques Parijs Frankrijk, The Metropolitan Museum of Photography Tokio Japan, The Baltimore Museum of Art United States of America, la Salle Chicago e.a. Her work is represented commercially by Gallery Pedro Alfacinha in Lisbon.

Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York City. Robert Morat Galerie in Germany.

Galerie Gabriel Rolt in Amsterdam.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Moonshine by Van Manen, Bertien (2014) Paperback

    (First edition, first)

  • Beyond Maps and Atlases by Bertien Van Manen (2016-01-31)
  • Moonshine by Bertien Van Manen (2014-04-01)
  • Beyond Maps and Atlases by Bertien Van Manen (2016-01-31)