Biography

Discussion

Maria Austria’s photography has an intense radiance that lies, on one hand, in the dramatic quality of the subjects she photographed, and on the other, in her working method. The combination of photography and theatre was well-suited to Austria’s character. She was intense, assertive, and professional, but also highly empathetic, and supportive of her colleagues.

Austria’s initial training in Vienna was primarily technical in nature. The Höhere Graphische Bundes Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt (‘Higher Graphics Federal Institute of Training and Research’) was established in 1888 as an institute specialised in the graphic arts. It included a separate department of photography as its ‘fourth section’. Students at this institute received a technical training. Austria’s personal formation was actually much more influenced by her years of practical experience working for a woman photographer in Vienna, who gave her the freedom to visit theatres to photograph performances.

When Austria left for the Netherlands in 1937 to practice photography, it had little to do with theatre. Instead, she photographed the knitting designs of her sister, Lisbeth, who had previously studied Weberei (‘weaving’) at the Bauhaus. Prior to Austria’s appearance, Eva Besnyö had photographed for Lisbeth. Austria’s fashion photos reveal an objective approach. All attention is devoted to the clothing, with a uniform background. The unusual camera angles and the shadow effects achieved through the lighting keeps the poses from being boring, though a somewhat static positioning was as yet common practice at this time.

After the war, Austria made several fashion reportages commissioned by companies and designers. In the 1950s, she occasionally shot these reportages on the canals of Amsterdam, as such moving fashion photography to the outdoors, as Emmy Andriesse had done. Absent from Austria’s photos is the playfulness found in the work of other Dutch fashion photographers active at this time, nor does one find the anecdotal quality of, for instance, Andriesse’s fashion photos.

In the post-war years, the revitalisation of the Netherlands was a topic frequently photographed. The members of Particam—with Maria Austria, Henk Jonker, Aart Klein, and Wim Zilver Rupe forming its nucleus—devoted substantial attention to economic topics, such as the practicing of one’s profession and artisanal enterprises. Nevertheless, their chief area of interest was the building up of culture. The Particam photographers made documentary reportages on a wide variety of topics, examined in great depth and from various points of view. These reportages were then submitted to newspapers and magazines. Magazines such as Margriet and Spiegel, as well as the newspaper Handelsblad, published their pieces on a regular basis. Austria’s reportages were distinctive from those of others due to her extraordinary interest in the emotions and experiences of the people she photographed. In a reportage she produced at a household fair, for instance, we can observe that people enjoying themselves was her primary concern. When required, e.g. for reportages on a profession or an artisanal trade, she combined personal involvement and business information in a manner that was understandable. Austria devoted significant attention to women in the home or in their working environments. Whenever possible, she avoided having people pose and tried to record those moments when they were most themselves: children engaged in playing, adults while doing their work.

Besides fashion photos, Austria also shot portrait photos at the start of her career prior to the war. She photographed families and children often belonging to emigrants’ circles. Stemming from Particam’s specialisation in theatrical photography after the war, Austria became the portraitist of numerous actors, directors, dancers, musicians, and cabaret entertainers. These portraits were used for publicity in newspapers, magazines, programme books, album covers, or as eye-catchers in theatre showcases. As early as the 1940s, Austria produced action portraits of orchestra conductors—before it became common practice in Europe—which portrayed the empathy, improvisational talent, and utmost concentration entailed. Austria would sit among the members of the orchestra or directly adjacent to the conductor, so as to optimally observe the gestures and facial expressions from where she was sitting. In doing so, she was applying the same approach as Felix H. Man, a German photographer living in the United States who was a pioneer in photographing conductors while in action.

After 1945, a new generation of theatrical photographers began to take form, who worked on location. This was contrary to the practice of renowned theatrical photographers such as Godfried de Groot and Mies Rosenboom-Merkelbach. The photographers of Particam also belonged to this group: Austria, Jonker, and Klein. Wim Zilver Rupe rarely took theatrical photos. In 1948, another important Dutch photographer in this area appeared on the scene: Frits Lemaire. There was never much competition between Lemaire and Particam, however, as they both did freelance work for their own respective theatrical companies.

Maria Austria and Aart Klein were granted the opportunity to photograph the first performances in the Stadsschouwburg (‘Civic Theatre’) in Amsterdam in the aftermath of the war, presented by actors who had refused to join the Kultuurkamer (‘Chamber of Culture’ under the Germans). For the Particam photographers, this was ultimately a definitive step in the direction of theatrical photography. Starting in 1945, Austria, Jonker and Klein photographed virtually every performance in the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg (‘Civic Theatre’). This led almost automatically to an expansion of their working territory to include the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Nederlandse Opera Stichting (‘Netherlands Opera Foundation’), and the larger ballet companies.

In the early days after the war, Klein and Austria also made numerous photo reportages on circus and cabaret (‘kleinkunst’) performances in Amsterdam. The work that Particam was doing at this point still differed little from their pre-war photography. The image was determined by a living room decor. Typically, the actors were asked to portray—as if frozen—a moment that the photographer deemed to be of interest. This kind of shot is called a ‘freeze’, to be considered as a staged form of theatrical photography. What did change was that camera angles were more varied than prior to the war, consequently leading to greater variety in the design. In 1947, Aart Klein made a technical discovery, which essentially allowed the Particam photographers to do their work in the theatre in a less static manner. Klein had found a way to photograph under difficult lighting conditions without having to use a flash, by forcibly (using a higher temperature) developing slow film shot with insufficient lighting. Nevertheless, the Particam photographers continued with their traditional working approach well into the 1960s—there was simply no pressing reason for them to change their ways. The newspapers requested photos with the actors being easily recognisable, preferably with the star of the show standing in the most important spot.

Over the years, the photographic insights of Austria, Jonker, and Klein shifted. One important factor was the selected repertoire of Toneelgroep Theater in Arnhem. Austria felt a strong connection to this company due to her friendship with its director, Rob de Vries. Starting in 1953, Toneelgroep Theater presented socially minded contemporary theatre, introducing writers such as Beckett and Ionesco. These plays were absurdist in nature and required an execution that differed entirely from conventional drama. The uniform lighting typically used on stage was now replaced by strong localised spotlighting and heavy shadow effects, which accentuated the actors. This resulted in a theatrical imagery that worked both in an expressive as well as an abstract manner. Such shifts in content and form in the theatrical world were to have an effect on Austria’s photography. The actor’s expression became an essential element in her photographic work. Because she was now able to go up on stage and stand in the actors’ very midst—virtually right on top of them—Austria’s photography became livelier and more penetrating.

In the 1960s, new forms of theatre inspired Austria. Internationally, the critique that many artists expressed regarding the cultural world’s elitist nature and materialism as a way of life had its effect on theatrical art. A play’s content now had first priority, with the emphasis placed on facial gesticulation and physical expression. The mythic image of the glamorous artist and the actor as an idol disappeared. It was partly under this influence that Austria’s theatrical photography took on a dynamic and brutal character.

Austria was a very loyal visitor to the Mickery Theater, where both national and international avant-garde groups appeared on stage. Austria photographed virtually every performance. After having become acquainted with innovative theatre, also referred to as ‘fringe’ theatre, it was only with difficulty that Austria was able to sympathise with the standard theatrical repertoire. In an interview conducted in December 1972, she related: ‘I have the feeling that the last three, four years were more interesting than the previous twenty-four’.

During the final years of her life, Austria was very much involved as a photographer in promoting socio-political theatre, which was garnering tremendous interest in the Netherlands in the early 1970s. Austria photographed performances done by the Werktheater , Proloog , and Baal en Sater. She devoted special attention to the formative theatre of Proloog, by producing reportages on this company’s events, meetings, and plays. She tried to depict the essence of Proloog’s theatre as best she could, by choosing for a more restrained approach to her photography. She avoided personal input by means of a sensational design, favouring a more objective visual registration. Austria followed some new forms of theatre and dance very closely. She was particularly fascinated by the Stichting Eigentijdse Dans —with Ellen Edinoff as the company’s principal dancer—for which she photographed virtually every performance. Austria continued her work as the ‘permanent’ freelance photographer of the Nederlandse Opera Stichting. She loved this work, more so for the music and less for the stage production. Analogous to the form of this kind of theatre, which is generally classical and traditional, Austria photographed these performances in a conventional manner. Whenever the opera was presented as a multimedia show or included other innovative elements, she depicted this creatively.

Performances at the Holland Festival were then, and still are aesthetic spectacles. The photos that Austria shot at this yearly festival bear a similar aesthetic character: well-balanced compositions, a perfect distribution of gradations in light, and an appropriate monumentality. During the month of the Holland Festival, Austria would run around day and night—together with whomever was her assistant at any given moment—shooting photos and subsequently delivering them to the newspapers in time for the next issue. Many photos were then sent on for publication abroad. The Netherlands Opera and the Holland Festival were what kept Austria afloat in her final years. The work she did for the latter event eventually received so much publicity that people began associating her name directly with the festival.

Starting in the 1950s, the shifts in Maria Austria’s photographic insights were influenced not only by changes in the theatrical arts, but were also a consequence of international developments in photography. From 1951 onward, the German photographer had begun propagating and expressing his ‘Subjective Photography’. The direction he and his followers urged was not based on any principle of style: anything was ‘permitted’, as long as it was inspired by a personal desire for form. Emphatically applied were new or revitalised technical and formal visual tools, e.g. solarisation, grey-tone reduction, strong rhythmicity, powerful linear play, and the representation of movement—whether suggestive or not. With the exception of solarisation, all of these visual means are also found in Austria’s photography.

Austria’s early interest in the work of Ed van der Elsken demonstrates that she valued his working method, the strong contrasts, the blackness, the close contact with his subject, and the depiction of movement. Inspired in this way, she utilised the effect of contrast in her photography, resulting in black-velvety prints.

The photos that Austria shot depicting the avant-garde groups performing at the Mickery Theater in the 1960s are entirely in accordance with the expressionistic photography of contemporary photographers such as Gerard Fieret and Ralph Prins. Like them, Austria made use of highly varied angles of view, applied dramatically alternating fields of sharpness and blur, and produced coarse-grained prints.

Austria always used a Rolleiflex well into the 1970s. It was for this reason that she had a small encasement built, in order to photograph while making as little noise as possible during the performances. She always travelled with her own lighting and a tripod in tow. Only in her final years did she switch to a 35mm camera and begins photographing with the camera in her hand. Austria possessed the experience and intuition to work without a photometer, even in difficult lighting situations. She did her own printing—perfectly and intuitively. The newspapers gladly published her photos. Austria’s apprentices acquired chiefly technical skills during the time they worked for her.

Austria printed almost always on glossy paper, resulting in a bright photograph. The sharpness found in her photos is optimal. She rarely made use of selective sharpness: from the front to the rear of the stage, everything could be seen clearly. Only with scenes ‘à deux’—still very common in theatrical photography of the 1950s—was the background photographed with reduced sharpness. Scenes were photographed with her own lighting. As a consequence, the mise-en-scene and areas of shadow diverged from what was seen during the actual performance. In her later work, Austria made use of available light and fast film.

Maria Austria brought change to the static character and the glamour atmosphere of theatrical photography in the Netherlands. Through her photography, she stayed aground of the latest developments in theatre, both in the Netherlands and abroad, for a period of thirty years. Through the specialisation she created, she gave theatrical photography its own face and status.

Documentation