Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I
- Introduction: Old and New Studio Topoi in the Nineteenth Century
- 1 Studio Matters: Materials, Instruments and Artistic Processes
- 2 Jean-Léon Gérôme, his Badger and his Studio
- 3 Showing Making in Courbet's The Painter's Studio
- 4 Making and Creating. The Painted Palette in Late Nineteenth-Century Dutch Painting
- 5 14, rue de La Rochefoucauld. The Partial Eclipse of Gustave Moreau
- 6 The Artist as Centerpiece. The Image of the Artist in Studio Photographs of the Nineteenth Century
- PART II
- Introduction: Forms and Functions of the Studio from the Twentieth Century to Today
- 7 The Studio as Mediator
- 8 Accrochage in Architecture: Photographic Representations of Theo van Doesburg's Studios and Paintings
- 9 Studio, Storage, Legend. The Work of Hiding in Tacita Dean's Section Cinema (Homage to Marcel Broodthaers)
- 10 The Empty Studio: Bruce Nauman's Studio Films
- 11 Home Improvement and Studio Stupor. On Gregor Schneider's (Dead) House ur
- 12 Staging the Studio: Enacting Artful Realities through Digital Photography
- Epilogue: “Good Art Theory Must Smell of the Studio”
- Index
6 - The Artist as Centerpiece. The Image of the Artist in Studio Photographs of the Nineteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I
- Introduction: Old and New Studio Topoi in the Nineteenth Century
- 1 Studio Matters: Materials, Instruments and Artistic Processes
- 2 Jean-Léon Gérôme, his Badger and his Studio
- 3 Showing Making in Courbet's The Painter's Studio
- 4 Making and Creating. The Painted Palette in Late Nineteenth-Century Dutch Painting
- 5 14, rue de La Rochefoucauld. The Partial Eclipse of Gustave Moreau
- 6 The Artist as Centerpiece. The Image of the Artist in Studio Photographs of the Nineteenth Century
- PART II
- Introduction: Forms and Functions of the Studio from the Twentieth Century to Today
- 7 The Studio as Mediator
- 8 Accrochage in Architecture: Photographic Representations of Theo van Doesburg's Studios and Paintings
- 9 Studio, Storage, Legend. The Work of Hiding in Tacita Dean's Section Cinema (Homage to Marcel Broodthaers)
- 10 The Empty Studio: Bruce Nauman's Studio Films
- 11 Home Improvement and Studio Stupor. On Gregor Schneider's (Dead) House ur
- 12 Staging the Studio: Enacting Artful Realities through Digital Photography
- Epilogue: “Good Art Theory Must Smell of the Studio”
- Index
Summary
In the winter of 1903 and during the spring of 1904, the Dutch photographer Sigmund Löw (1845–1910) and one of his assistants, Henry Jan Bordes (1870–1963), visited at least 35 artists with the intention of capturing their image in the studio. Both photographers worked for Atelier S. Herz, an Amsterdam studio that had a lucrative sideline in the fabrication of mirrors and, more interestingly, in the sale and framing of artworks. At some point around 1900, Herz began to focus on photography, mostly turning out portraits on demand and publishing photos as picture postcards, as well as acquiring an offset machine and setting up a distribution system. The subjects of the picture postcards were mostly cityscapes made either by Herz's own employees or by other photographers, such as Pieter Oosterhuis (1816–1885). Herz also did a brisk trade in the sale of portraits of celebrities, for example actors. By 1903 Atelier Herz had become a professional photography studio, abandoning the mirror factory and other activities.
Löw and his assistants preferred a sober, documentary style of photography: the actors, for example, are dressed for their role of the moment, but the acting itself, the gestures and facial expressions which were so often part of actors’ photographic portraits, was mostly absent. Herz's photographs were not marred by the fancy pictorialism or strange angles so typical of the art photography of the time. The soberness of Herz's photography extended to the series of art ists’ portraits, showing the painters and sculptors at the heart of their studio with as much of the workspace as possible visible within the frame. By placing the artist in a corner of the room with all his tools, the studio seemed larger than in reality was the case.
The selection of artists chosen by Atelier Herz is interesting. Most were members of the Hague School circle; glaringly absent is the younger generation of the Amsterdam School who by 1903 were established and respected artists in their own right. One is surprised, for example, to find no photograph of either George Hendrik Breitner or Willem Witsen's studio. If the photographers’ aim had been to capture the 30 best artists of their time, we would today have chosen rather differently. Nevertheless, around 1900 these artists were probably very well known.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Hiding Making - Showing CreationThe Studio from Turner to Tacita Dean, pp. 106 - 119Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2013