Biography

Discussion

As a person and in his approach, Meinard Woldringh is not someone who can be described in just a few words. His views concerning photography were straightforward and principled; his character was complicated. The term ‘a rough diamond’ was perhaps most applicable for this photographer from Groningen. Woldringh’s timidity could sometimes come across as rigid and stubborn, and yet he was still a modest and sensitive man. He was contemplative photographer, fully aware of his medium’s specific qualities and properties. According to the art historian Jos. de Gruyter, Woldringh was incredibly patient in his work, a perfectionist, critical of himself and others, and very rarely satisfied with the final result. Woldringh wrote in 1943: ‘I consider it my task as a photographer to see more and better than someone else.’ This is not to be interpreted as a lofty proclamation, but as a traditional and characteristically well-considered opinion regarding the artist’s profession. Woldringh had chosen for the field of photography and he therefore felt that placing high expectations on himself and on the quality of his work was a given. At the same time, he expected the same degree of commitment from his employees and colleagues. This occasionally led to heated clashes, both in his work at the NRM (Nederlandsche Rotogravure Maatschappij, ‘Netherlands Rotogravure Company’) as well as at gatherings of the NFK (Nederlandse Fotografen Kunstkring, ‘Netherlands Photographers Art Society’). Quite often, Woldringh’s critical stance was experienced as arrogance.

From the moment he decided to become a photographer, Meinard Woldringh looked for the best ways to master his profession, both in technical and artistic terms. In the 1930s, a quality technical training in photography could only be obtained by working for an experienced professional or studying abroad. To familiarise himself with the various movements in photography and acquire a knowledge of the basics, Woldringh worked for an advertising firm on a volunteer basis as well as the photographers Nico Zomer and Marius Meijboom. Zomer and Meijboom had attended the Reimann Schule in Berlin several years before, a private school with the character of an art academy. Woldringh decided to instead attend the ‘Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für das Lichtbildwesen’ (‘Bavarian State Insitute for Photography’) in Munich, Germany, a programme often praised in the Dutch magazine Bedrijfsfotografie (‘Corporate Photography’). While this study devoted substantial attention to the practical aspects of photography, the programme also included ‘künstlerische Bildung’ (‘artistic representation’), photochemistry, optics, perspective, physics, and drawing. Woldringh had acquired such a vast amount of knowledge and experience during his ‘preliminary phase’ prior to heading to Munich that he easily completed two years of study at this institution in just one year. In his second year of study, he specialised in advertising photography and colour technique. It was also at this time that he worked for his teacher Otto Hans Beier.

The advertising photos that Woldringh produced during this period—for cigarettes, gloves, tools, etc.—possess characteristic traits of the New Objectivity: sometimes photographed from a high vantage point; sometimes represented as two-dimensional objects on a flat surface. Neutral backgrounds, cast shadows, and light and dark contrasts were the ingredients he used to compose his photos. Whether it be his schooling in Munich or the influence of his teacher Beier, the precise influence that motivated him to adopt this ‘new objectivist’ working method as his own remains uncertain. Woldringh’s specific interest in the latest developments in colour photography had emerged back in his days of training under Nico Zomer. In the final year of his studies in Germany, Woldringh took a brief practical course in colour photography at the company Jospé in Bremen, where products such as photographic paper for the Duxochrome colour printing process were being manufactured.

Several months after returning from Munich, Woldringh set up his own studio in The Hague at the suggestion of Otto Hans Beier. He was planning to produce advertising photography in colour, but was prevented from doing so due to the outbreak of World War II. Woldringh was left with no other choice but to spend his time producing portrait and dance photos in black and white. Based on the scarcity of materials, colour photography had fallen to the wayside.

Within a short period of time, Woldringh had built up a solid reputation in The Hague based on his high craftsmanship, resulting in a large clientele. With only a limited supply of materials at his disposal during the German occupation—film, photo paper, and chemicals were all scarce—Woldringh was still able to furnish quality portrait work. During the first years of the war, portrait photographers generally had plenty of work: men who were being put to work elsewhere, the women remaining behind, and fiancés and family members, who all wished to have a portrait to remember their loved ones. Moreover, passport photos were necessary for purposes of identification.

In his portrait photography, Woldringh generally preferred serene poses exuding calm, with lighting used to evoke an element of drama. Daring perspectives, extreme close-ups, or unexpected camera angles—the preferred visual devices just one generation before—are found nowhere in Woldringh’s work. He made effective use of naturally occurring linear rhythms, contours, light and dark gradations, and a camera angle at eye-level. In this early phase of his photographic career, one can observe a similarity between Woldringh’s atmospheric portrait photography and the portraiture of colleagues in The Hague, e.g. Willy Schurman and Jan Stokvis.

The qualities encountered in Woldringh’s portrait photography also led to commissions for dance photography. Rein Meijer had referred Ilse Meudtner, a German dancer from Berlin, to Woldringh. Through Meudtner, he then came into contact with the dancer Harold Kreutzberg. Woldringh was commissioned by these dancers to shoot photos in his studio. The shots were taken during energetic one-man shows put on by both Meudtner and Kreutzberg (individually). Indra Dev Prasad, an Indian dancer living in The Hague, likewise approached Woldringh’s studio for his dance photos and ‘mudras’ (Buddhist and Hindu ritual expressions of dance solely involving the hands).

Many of these dance photos reveal the same contained, serene atmosphere found in Woldringh’s portraits, achieved primarily through the lack of motion blur. In spite of this, however, these photos possess a substantial degree of tension, because Woldringh captured the extremely heightened dynamic of the dance during its most ‘explosive’ moments. An enhancement of the drama was additionally achieved by means of the lighting.

Immediately after the war, Meinard Woldringh made an attempt to switch from portrait photography to advertising, with an eye to resuming his interest in colour photography. Because he had already acquired a reputation for his technical proficiency and experimentation in this field, he was given such an opportunity when approached by Mr. D. Lambinon, a board member of the NRM (Nederlandsche Rotogravure Maatschappij, ‘Netherlands Rotogravure Society’) in Leiden, which had its own two-man photo department.

It was initially agreed that Woldringh would work on a freelance basis, thus enabling him to run his own studio on the side. Due to the steady growth of his responsibilities at the NRM, however, such a combination proved to be unworkable. Woldringh accordingly accepted a permanent position with the company in 1950 and permanently shut down his studio in The Hague. He was subsequently made the head of the NRM’s photo studio, which he was allowed to entirely refurnish according to his own vision, with modern equipment and facilities, several years later. At the time, the NRM was the largest printing company specialised in intaglio in the Netherlands. The company printed illustrated weeklies, including Margriet, Eva, and Televizier, as well as printed matter for books, catalogues, calendars, and advertising brochures. Important clients included the RVD (Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst, ‘Netherlands Government Information Service’), KLM Airlines, the Keukenhof, Kwekerij Moerheim (a plant nursery), Glasblazerij Leerdam (a glass-blowing company), and Vroom & Dreesman. The NRM also commissioned Woldringh to produce the printed matter for gifts given to the company’s business associates. A high point in advertising photography and printmaking was the publication Kleurenavontuur (‘Colour adventure’) on 0.025 mm, created through the collaboration of Woldringh and Frans Vink. Woldringh also did the NRM calendars, which included nature photos from his personal archive: the landscape of Norway for the first NRM calendar, and trees for the second. The third calendar was devoted to printmaking. A planned fourth calendar planned centring on the theme of ‘beach’ was never released. Of the photos that Woldringh shot for this purpose during the final year of his life, twelve were published posthumously as a portfolio in 1985, with the prints made by Harm Botman.

A large share of the reproduction and advertising photographs taken for the NRM’s printed matter was done in the company’s own studio. Woldringh also shot photos on location, such as colour slides of flowers at the Keukenhof as well as plants and flowers at the Moerheim plant nursery. The work he was doing for the NRM studio grew so fast that in no time he found himself managing a team of eight to nine people, including photographers such as Ludo Bergmans, Hans van Dordrecht, Jan den Hengst, Taeke Henstra, Hans den Hertog, Marcel Minnee, Chris Paul Stapels, and Frans Vink.

Woldringh frequently worked with a technical camera, preferably the lightweight Brand camera—an American product. He often ventured out using this camera to do his autonomous work. Woldringh attached great importance to the manageability of the shooting technique, which increases with the shooting format and the ability to adjust the optical settings with a technical camera. Yet he also often worked with a 6×6 cm Hasselblad camera. Most of the works in Woldringh’s negative and slide archive—works other than those related to his NRM assignments—are on 6×6 cm film. He also owned a Contax 35 mm camera, which he used primarily during the war, because at that time 35 mm film was most readily available and the Contax had a wide-aperture lens. Woldringh liked to work with hand-held cameras when desiring the freedom to move about his subjects.

The varied and sometimes complicated studio work at the NRM placed professional demands on the equipment being used. For such purposes, Woldringh had a Sinar technical camera system at his disposal, capable of every shooting format up to 20×25 cm, an installation for electric flash, and a full arsenal of lamps up to more than 30 kilowatts.

During his initial years at the NRM, Woldringh was obliged to take colour photos with a ‘Bermpohl’ camera—a so-called ‘one-shot’ camera. With this plate camera, it was possible to make three partial negatives simultaneously with a single exposure through the use of built-in mirrors and filters. The loss of light due to the very same mirrors and filters, however, was significant. The arrival of three-layered film for the technical camera in large formats was therefore a welcome improvement. At the NRM studio, Woldringh relied mainly on slide positive Kodak Ektachrome sheet film, which he was able to process in the studio’s own laboratory starting in 1958. Together with his lab technicians, Woldringh made the colour enlargements himself and conducted numerous experiments in this area.

For his autonomous work, Woldringh preferred the colour negative/positive process, because it allowed him to choose a format, framing, and colour control to best express his vision. Through his own autonomous colour photography, he sought to compensate for his occasionally forced, staged advertising work. The challenge for Woldringh was to capture the essence of objects based on characteristic points. He employed photographic technique—irrespective of black and white or colour photography—to intensify his message: harsh, high contrast black and white when conveying the robust character of trees and rocks; soft colours, for photographing the refined structures found in nature, such as colour combinations occurring in the space of just a few square centimetres of solid rock.

Woldringh was a nature lover from the start, with part of his childhood spent on his uncle’s farm. His love of the outdoor life was what initially determined his decision to attend agricultural school. It was his fear of later having to sit behind an office desk that led him to become a photographer. To compensate his commissioned work, he frequently went out to photograph on his own. Woldringh travelled—both alone and with colleagues—to England, Scotland, Norway, Southern France, Brittany, and Switzerland. Whether photographing abroad or at home in his own country, his motivation was always the same: to look for the essence in external phenomena. The trunk and foot of a large beech tree, a slender spruce, a surprising pine tree (he especially loved trees), a branch in the snow, the leaves of an oak tree in the sun, weak ice along a canal embankment, rocks or ribbed sand in the land-wash: all of these elements drew his attention. Woldringh was investigating, as it were, the laws of nature with his camera. ‘The eye of the camera forces us, namely, to recognise and isolate what is essential out of the abundance of phenomena,’ as he stated in 1943—a principle on which he would concentrate his efforts throughout his life. Woldringh sought the perfect form and the serene image. He tried to analyse nature by isolating and abstracting details. He would then frame his subject so ‘tightly’ with his camera that all potentially distracting surroundings were excluded. Relying on a selective depth of field, Woldringh ‘pushed’ irrelevant backgrounds to the wayside. He sometimes photographed an object at such a short distance that the three-dimensionality of the detail was almost completely eliminated: this, too, was a form of abstraction. In this respect, he was able to take photography much further in his autonomous work than in his commissions. In the end, Woldringh reached a point where mere ripples in the sand—reminders of the play of sand, wind, and water—were sufficient to convey his ideas.

In the Netherlands, it was not an immediately obvious choice for a professional photographer to delve into nature and landscape photography with such vigour after the war. Meinard Woldringh, Martien Coppens, and Wim Noordhoek were unique in this regard, when compared to the many photographers across the country at this time. Unsurprisingly, all three men had numerous contacts abroad, primarily with German photographers. The German group ‘Fotoform’ was established in 1949, which devoted ample attention to nature, undoubtedly in response to the painful years of the war. Among the groups members were Otto Steinert, Ludwig Windstosser, Peter Keetman, and later Heinz Hajek Halke as well. Woldringh was able to identify with their ideas about photography: they were looking for a new means of expression by isolating and abstracting their motifs, as well giving them an independent, subjective significance, deprived of their original context. They too experimented with perspective, tonality, and graphic effects as a way to arrive at new forms of expression. In 1951, these ideas were translated into images for the first exhibition of Subjektive Fotografie (‘Subjective Photography’) organised by Dr. Otto Steinert. Woldringh and Coppens were among the nine Dutch photographers represented at this exhibition. In the subsequent exhibitions on subjective photography that Steinert organised as a sequel to the first, specifically Subjektive Fotografie 2 and Images inventées (‘Invented Images’), these ideas were communicated once again by participating exhibitors, including Woldringh. A spiritual affinity with these German photographers is undeniably present, though an intentional disorientation achieved through chaotic forms and tilting the camera is encountered far less frequently in Woldringh’s work.

Woldringh’s work also displays similarities with that of contemplative American photographers such as Brett Weston, Minor White, and Harry Callahan.

On various occasions, Meinard Woldringh has committed his views on photography to paper. His basic tenets find their roots in the 1930s, the period of New Objectivity and New Photography. Throughout his oeuvre, Woldringh has remained loyal to a few basic principles of New Photography, such as the subject’s direct representation void of manipulation, respecting the mechanical nature of technique, and relying on the tonal scale specific to photography as an essential element in visualising the image. With the exception of his advertising photos, Woldringh was fairly reserved when it came to introducing unusual camera angles and photomontage. Woldringh maintained that the use of special effects to achieve a unity in the photo should in no way affect reality. He viewed composition, framing, and lighting as stylistic devices to draw the observer’s eye to the essence, not as a means to achieve a certain aesthetic aim. The same applied to technique, which, though it had to be mastered perfectly, always remained nothing more than a resource in achieving the actual aim. Anything that distracted from the goal—the photo—had to be avoided. For this reason, Woldringh opposed (white) margins around the image, both with original photos and printed matter. He utilised the entire surface of the photographic paper, with photos in printed matter preferably ‘bleeding’ to the edge. Despite perceived similarities to principles of New Photography, with Woldringh the formalism of that period eventually made way for other interpretations of the boundaries of photography, in part under the influence of Otto Steinert’s ‘Subjective Photography’.

Woldringh not only photographed with heart and soul, he was also an active member of various (photography) organisations. Shortly after the war, he became a member of the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Kleurenstudie (‘Netherlands Association of Colour Study’), where he presented lectures on colour photography, among other topics. He was also on the ‘Culturele Commissie’ (‘Cultural Committee’) of the ‘Vakgroep fotografie’ (‘Department of Photography’) in the years immediately following the war. This led to his becoming involved in the thought process among professional photographers regarding a new, or renewed, trade association—a trend that could be observed in various European countries. With his friends Willy Schurman and Nico Zomer, Woldringh played an active part in reorganising the out-dated NFK (Nederlandse Fotografen Kunstkring, ‘Netherlands Photographers Art Circle’.) Together, the three men formed a study group, which reformulated the organisation’s aims, toughened up the acceptance criteria, and set down an active policy for meetings, exhibitions, and competitions. The name of the association was also changed to ‘Nederlandse Fotografen Kring’ (‘Netherlands Photographers Circle’). Woldringh was on the board of this organisation for twenty-one years, first as its secretary and the last three years as its chairman. For members of the NFK, he was always seen as a pivotal figure. Colleagues placed great value on his leadership abilities and his critical, but honest evaluation of their work. Woldringh put substantial effort into promoting the economic interests of the association’s members, including copyright compliance. Woldringh was also involved in setting up ‘Burafo’ (Stichting tot Bescherming en Handhaving van Foto Auteursrechten, ‘Foundation for the Protection and Compliance of Photo Authorship Rights’), together with Nico Brink and Willy Schurman. Within the NFK, Woldringh was a strong proponent of accepting amateur photographers. He believed the mutual influence of member and non-member photographers was of great value. As a man not quickly frightened off by the opinions of others, Woldringh was also one of the few NFK members in regular contact with members of the GKf (Gebonden Kunsten Federatie, vakgroep fotografie, ‘United Arts Federation, Department of Photography’) in Amsterdam.

Woldringh was also an active member of the European association of professional photographers, Europhot. He loyally attended the Europhot assemblies on a regular basis, held in Milan, the United Kingdom, Bürgenstock (Switzerland), Liège (Belgium), Garmish-Partenkirchen (Germany), and Wageningen. He also gave lectures at a number of these conferences. Europhot appointed Woldringh as its representative on the editorial board for the special issues of Camera Europhot, which appeared several times each year in the Swiss magazine Camera. Woldringh was one of the initiators involved in setting up this Europhot publication, having frequently argued for a collective, high-quality European trade magazine as opposed to the numerous mediocre photography magazines oriented to a single country.

On behalf of the NFK and Europhot, Woldringh played an active role in organising and promoting participation in exhibitions, always with the same goal in mind: to raise the level of professional photography. He viewed this as an educative task, directed at both the photographers and the general public. The most important exhibitions Woldringh co-organised were: Fotoschouw ’52, held at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague in 1952; the 1955 exhibition Family of Man, organised by Edward Steichen; and the Europhot exhibition held at the Photokina in Cologne, Germany, in 1963. Woldringh’s expertise, his organisational talents, and his ability to transform ideas into words and images (not only his own photos, but also those of others) made him the ideal man to promote the interests of Dutch photographers at all of these events. In this regard, it should also be observed that the managing directors of the NRM consistently extended every freedom to Woldringh, offering their wholehearted support when it came to his numerous activities outside the company.

As an author, Woldringh conveyed his perspectives on (colour) photography to a great number of people via numerous articles published in various magazines and yearbooks. He also shared his insights with others by presenting lectures at amateur photographer’s associations and other organisations.

Woldringh played a highly significant role in the training of young photographers. For many individual photographers, his standing as a mentor in the area of practical experience—at his studio in The Hague and later at the NRM studio—was immeasurably valuable. He frequently served as an examiner for student exams at the Fotovakschool and the St. Joost Academy in Breda. For years he sat on the board of the MTS voor fotografie en fototechniek (‘Intermediate Technical School for Photography and Photographic Technique’) in The Hague. With Carel Tirion’s retirement in 1968, Woldringh was nominated to become the school’s chairman of the board: a plan that never came to fruition due to Woldringh’s sudden death. He was also an instructor at the St. Joost Academy for several months in the final year of his life.

In the decades after the war, Meinard Woldringh was an important photographer with an international reputation. He left behind an oeuvre of exceptional quality, which he expertly corroborated with written texts conveying his ideas, preferences, and sense of quality. Woldringh was a proponent of an international exchange among (professional) photographers and was extremely active in this regard. There is no doubt he had substantial influence on the NFK, in terms of the association’s activities, its level of quality, and photographic style. Less tangible for posterity were his collegiality and his personal fortitude in defending the interests of photography and photographers.

Documentation