Biography

Discussion

Francis Kramer is what one would call a ‘successful member of society’: a personality, who managed to perfectly combine his ambitions as an art photographer and his profession as a portrait photographer with various organisational activities on behalf of photography associations at both the national and local level. With his dominant nature, enormous drive, and talent as a public speaker, Kramer had the authority and capability of a leader. Within the NFK (Nederlandse Fotografen Kunstkring, ‘Netherlands Photographers Art Society’), and the later established NFPV (Nederlandse Fotografen Patroonsvereeniging, ‘Netherlands Photographers Guild’), he therefore assumed a spearheading role. Kramer’s success as a portrait photographer of noble families as well accorded him a certain status.

Kramer’s training as a photographer was obtained chiefly abroad. It was comprised of two parts. One part was based on acquiring a technical knowledge of the field, as occurred at the portrait studio of Laurent Colbert in Belgium and during his year of studying photochemistry with Otto Mente in Germany. The other consisted of learning to master creative skills such as drawing and painting at ‘Kunstliefde’ (‘Love of Art’), an art association in Utrecht. The skills Kramer acquired with the pencil and the paintbrush proved to be extremely useful in his photographic portrait work, specifically for retouching and making backgrounds.

Kramer’s photographic oeuvre includes a sizeable collection of portrait photography. For more than forty years, he portrayed members of the aristocratic class in Utrecht and environs, from which he was able to make a good living. His success in business was largely of his own doing, by creating excellent publicity from the moment he settled in Utrecht. As a journalist wrote in the 5 March 1930 issue of the Utrechtsch Nieuwsblad to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Kramer’s business: ‘He began his work in Utrecht with an exhibition, as well in the Building for K and W [Kunst en Wetenschap, ‘Art and Science’], which proved he had not been sitting still while abroad. His work required that two halls be set up, and the exhibition was so successful that even people in the circles of prominent families began to appreciate Kramer as a portraitist.’ In the same year, Kramer was honoured with the title of ‘hoffotograaf’, i.e. royal court photographer. At exhibitions, he presented himself as an art photographer, exuding the allure of a ‘bewegelijke Hollandsche Franschman’ (‘lively Dutch Frenchman’). Kramer also spoke various languages fluently, which certainly increased his clientele’s regard for him. His ‘photo sketches’, in any event, were very much in demand, a technique that involved taking a photo portrait printed on white photographic cardboard, to which a background, colour, and perspective were added in pencil. Kramer’s well-to-do clients were happy to pay a little extra for an extraordinary portrait of this kind.

Throughout his career, Kramer operated various branch studios in Utrecht, and for a brief time, an affiliate in Zeist. His most impressively furnished studio was on the Biltstraat, which he owned from 1920 to 1940. Its interior can be described in detail. The wet finishing space with chemical baths and rinsing trays was in the kitchen, with the pantry functioning as a storage space for the chemicals. The ‘blue salon’ was a stunning studio. The adjacent conservatory was used as a ladies’ changing room, complete with mirrors, curtains, and perfumes. A glass-roofed veranda was used for printing photos with the daylight method.

With his art photography, Kramer proved to be highly adept at fine printing (‘edeldruk’) processes. His themes in this genre are primarily landscape, portraiture, and architecture. These photos were intended for exhibitions and not necessarily for sale. Kramer exhibited frequently, particularly in the 1920s. In 1919, Kramer described the philosophy at the heart of his art photography as follows in the publication Licht en Schaduw (‘Light and Shadow’): ‘In the hands of an art photographer, the negative is like a sketch for a canvas as yet to be painted.’ Gum prints are almost graphics, his bromoil prints—reworked with a paintbrush—are more reminiscent of oil paintings or embellished red-chalk drawings. Kramer reworked some of his fine printing portraits graphically, and on occasion, he rendered them as a geometric linear pattern. Kramer adhered to the same notions as Henri Berssenbrugge, whom he so greatly admired. Berssenbrugge maintained that it was not the beautiful, pure representation of reality that could elevate photography to art, but rather its ‘transformation according to one’s own thought, one’s own soul’.

Kramer worked with a variety of fine printing processes, but especially gum printing, combined gum printing, and bromoil ink printing, but also his own process with ‘lampenzwart’ (a pitch black). He also experimented with ‘fotografiek’ (‘photographics’), a technique applied not only by Kramer and Berssenbrugge, but also by Franz Ziegler. Starting around 1926, Kramer experimented with the newest colour print technique, the Jospé print. In the future development of photography, however, the success of both photographics and the Jospé print would quickly prove to be short-lived. For his regular portrait work, Kramer relied on bromide printing.

Despite the time Kramer spent abroad during his days of training, one finds virtually no trace of a foreign influence in his work. The roots of his photography lie in Dutch painting and artistic photography. Only a few photos from about 1930 betray any interest in contemporary developments occurring in photography outside the Netherlands. The style of the Czech photographer Frantisek Drtikol may perhaps have inspired Kramer to make his Danseres met bal (‘Woman Dancer with Ball’). Kramer’s portraits of women—in profile and with a strong linear execution—are most certainly contemporary in spirit. Man Ray’s solarised portraits, e.g. that of Lee Miller, could also have had an influence. In the finishing of his portraits, however, Kramer’s work is much closer to graphic art than the photography of his day. Kramer’s monumental architectural photos seem somewhat ‘un-Dutch’. While the architectural shots of Martien Coppens perhaps invite comparison, these works were produced from a different approach. When examining Kramer’s detail shot of the Dom Cathedral in Utrecht, one thinks more of work by the major French architectural photographers from the nineteenth century, e.g. Charles Nègre or the Bisson brothers.

As an art photographer, Kramer applied the stylistic forms he so greatly admired in the work of Henri Berssenbrugge, making cubist and abstracted, i.e. ‘graphic’, portraits. In his professionally made portraits, his style is sometimes comparable to that of Godfried de Groot and Willy Schurman: a dramatic lighting marked by strong contrasts, designed to create an atmosphere of glamour. His studio decors were arranged with taste and style. This sometimes entailed painted or neutral backdrops, incorporating several pieces of chic furniture. Group portraits of Dutch noble families were usually taken in their own homes; his compositions were determined by what best suited the atmosphere and entourage. Kramer managed to achieve an allure such as that found in work done by the major European portrait studios, such as Madame D’Ora in Vienna. He was unlikely to have been impressed by the objective nature of New Photography: not a single trace of its influence can be seen in his work.

In 1907, Kramer founded the Vereeniging Koninginnedag Utrecht (‘Utrecht Queen’s Day Association’). This marked the start of a lengthy career as a politically active citizen, organiser, committee member, and chairman for various important events and celebrations. During the First World War, Kramer founded an action committee for Belgian prisoners, and for three years he worked as ‘President du comité de Distraction pour Internes Belges’ (‘President of the Committee for the Entertainment of Imprisoned Belgians’). For his demonstrated effort and commitment, the king of Belgium made him a Knight in the Order of Leopold II. In Utrecht, Kramer was the chairman of the implementation committee, which handled the university’s 300th anniversary. He was also the chairman of the financial committee in charge of decorating the city during for the the student ‘Corps’ (i.e. student fraternities) celebrations held every five years, a position that would later earn him the ‘senaatswapen’ (‘senate coat-of-arms’) and the honorary title of ‘fotografis artis magister’ (‘master of arts in photography’). Finally, Kramer headed the committee marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the police marching band.

‘He is a Photographer, who can liven things up in a city of approximately 150,000 inhabitants such as Utrecht. Who garners people’s attention and draws them towards him to listen to his authoritative word, just as one used to listen to a born speaker and organiser (…) who conveys faith in his task and the essential faith in oneself’, as it was described in De Fotograaf of 28 February 1930. Considering Kramer’s organisational talent, he was obviously a likely candidate to fulfil important functions in the various photographic organisations. He was not only a co-founder, but also the first chairman of the NFPV. For a period of time, he was the chief editor of the magazine Licht en Schaduw. He was also the first federation chairman of the ‘Nederlandse amateurfotografenorganisatie’ (‘Netherlands Amateur Photographers Organisation’) and chairman of the NFK for more than twenty years. Kramer wrote editorial pieces for photography magazines and even published his own prose in provincial newspapers.

Kramer was in favour of a powerful photographer’s organisation that would serve to promote the economic interests of its members. As an active member, he tried to get the NFK to move in this direction. The NFK, however, was chiefly preoccupied with creative achievements, taking only a neutral stance when it came to problems concerning the business affairs of its members. In 1919, this led to a rift within the NFK, with Kramer and several of his supporters going on to found a new association, the NFPV. In that same year, Adriaan Boer founded his magazine Bedrijfsfotografie (‘Corporate Photography’), hoping that this publication would function as the NFPV’s own trade publication. As the group’s chairman, however, Kramer wanted the association to establish an independent publication of its own. This took the form of the magazine Licht en Schaduw, with Kramer himself as chief editor. One-and-a-half years later, however, the publisher introduced a dramatic increase in the magazine’s production costs. The NFPV’s management board subsequently approached Adriaan Boer for a price quote. To prevent forfeiting his (paid) position as chief editor, however, Kramer suppressed Boer’s offer and extended the agreement with the existing publishers of Licht en Schaduw. When news of Kramer’s action surfaced, the NFPV intervened, as yet signing a contract with Boer. Consequently, Bedrijfsfotografie became the official trade publication of the NFPV in December 1920. Licht en Schaduw‘s existence as an ‘onafhankelijk orgaan der Nederlandsche Fotografen voor beroep en handel’ (‘independent trade publication of Dutch Photographers for Profession and Commerce’) was ultimately short-lived. Kramer’s position on the management board of the NFPV had become untenable. He withdrew from the association and returned to the ranks of the NFK.

Francis Kramer made a qualitative and diverse contribution to art photography in the Netherlands. His experiments in the areas of colour photography and photographics resulted in exceptional photos. In addition, his portrait oeuvre is of critical importance as a reservoir of images portraying members of the Dutch noble class. Kramer continuously played a motivating role in promoting the position of professional photographers, devoting his effort to matters such as authorship rights and education in the field of photography. His vivacious personality and verbal skills were qualities that made him an authority in the world of professional photography in the Netherlands.

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