Biography

Discussion

Victor Meeussen’s former colleague Rein Meijer describes him as an erudite and well-read man. He was modest (‘there was an element of self-effacement in his attitude’ as one source stated in the magazine Foto in 1952), sensitive, and somewhat sombre, but also a lover of witty humour and wordplay. Meeussen read a lot of German literature and knew his art history well. He saw photography as an important means of communication and expression, but not as art. He subscribed to the notion put forward by the photography historian Dr. Karel Pawek that photography—with its highly specific capacities and specifications—stands alongside art.

Unfortunately, there was a highly dissonant episode in Meeussen’s life that led him to make controversial choices during World War II. Once he had decided to work for the German VW (Volkse Werkgemeenschap, ‘Peoples Working Community’), there was apparently no turning back. At the core of his decision lay a lack of vision with respect to political developments and the consequences that would come with it.

Meeussen’s knowledge of photography was gained through his practical experience working with many different mentors. He learned a great deal from Dr. Paul Wolff in the areas of composition and design. One finds a similar approach to photography in the two men’s work. Wolff’s expertise in areas such as 35mm and colour photography was undoubtedly the most significant part of Meeussen’s training.

Besides his many teachers, Meeussen’s love of art and art history were also instrumental factors in his formation and the development of his personal taste. After the war, his most important client was Esso Netherlands. Meeussen produced reportages in locations where the company manufactured, transported, and supplied its products, and at those places where sub-contractors did the refining. His oeuvre therefore largely comprises photos of refineries, factories, companies, drilling platforms, shipyards, airfields and harbours. Many of Meeussen’s photos were published in Essofoon, the company’s magazine for its personnel; in Essobron, the publication produced specifically for its business relations; and in International Oilways, a magazine oriented to major buyers of products associated with oil exploitation and refining. His numerous reportages on car racing made on assignment for Esso were another component of his work: Meeussen seldom missed the ‘Big Prize of the Netherlands’ at Zandvoort.

In addition to Esso, Meeussen also received commissions from corporations like Volkswagen, the NAM (Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij, ‘Netherlands Oil and Gas Company’), Smit’s International, and KLM Airlines. For these companies, Meeussen shot reportage photos of machinery, products, and activities directly ‘on the work floor’. On occasion, he allowed his photos to be distributed by photo agencies, including ‘Cevirum’ in The Hague (under the direction of G.A. van der Chijs) and the photo agency Anthony-Verlag in Starnberg am See (Germany).

In his free time, Meeussen preferred to photograph people and happenings in the street, at street markets, on playgrounds, or at the beach. He also photographed a variety of circus performances, carnival celebrations, and fairs, as well as other festivities such as Queen’s Day and Liberation Day. Meeussen especially devoted his attention to events of a seemingly insignificant nature, when people displayed their emotions: happy children, a couple in love, caring fathers or mothers holding small children in their arms, children in their wagons, singing members of the Salvation Army, and many other topics falling under the category of ‘human interest’ photography. With some of these subjects, e.g. children in their wagons or being held in people’s arms, Meeussen shot entire series.

Wouter de Keizer characterised Meeussen’s snapshot technique as a spiritual genre that was greatly lacking in Dutch photography (Foto 1952). He worded it as follows: ‘The very first thing is that the elements of a good photo have be identified. What is lacking has to be understood. Then the quintessence, i.e. the key moment, has to be targetable. Required for this are a charged interest free of nervousness, a feeling for drama, an original perspective on things and people, and unquestionably a bit of luck. The favourable bringing together of contrasts, such as, for example, the old-fashioned and the modern, or the processing of what is unexpected: these are always useful ingredients. These specimens from Meeussen’s oeuvre are worth studying.’

In his autonomous work, Meeussen regularly allowed himself to be seduced into experimenting with abstractions, the play of light, and blur. Like a number of his close colleagues at the NFK (Nederlandse Fotografen Kunstkring, ‘Netherlands Photographers Art Society’), he sometimes photographed with his lens out of focus, allowed lens reflections to show up in his shots, set his lens wide open when photographing moving light, or turned his attention to reflections in the water. In applying this working approach, Meeussen demonstrated his adherence to ideas espoused by Dr. Otto Steinert, a proponent of experimenting with form and technique, with the goal of extending the boundaries of photography. Meeussen’s work was exhibited at both of Steinert’s exhibitions, Subjektive Fotografie 1 and 2.

Furthermore, Meeussen was captivated by architecture, based on the formal options it provided in creating aesthetic compositions with beautiful linear rhythms and effects of contrast. With assignments for corporate reportages, he liked to take shots that allowed him to express his sense of aesthetics. The linear play of piping or the light contrasts in factory architecture inspired this in him often.

From about 1951, Meeussen was a principal member of the NFK. With his evaluation skills and analytical view, he was a member of the jury assessing the annual submissions for years (1951­–1968) without fail, along with Meinard Woldringh and Ed van Wijk. The criteria maintained in judging these works have not been preserved on paper. During academic research conducted in 1979 regarding the comings and goings of the NFK in the period after World War II, recollections voiced during interviews with former members of the NFK at this time were varied. Bernard van Gils had the following to say about the association’s meetings: ‘At such a meeting, you naturally have people with amazing analytical skills—Victor Meeussen, Coppens—who are therefore most definitely running the show.’ Steef Zoetmulder, by contrast, was somewhat less positive: ‘There was hardly any change within the jury. It always come down to two men having the say: Woldringh was always there and Meeussen. Endless chatter.’

Meeussen was a dedicated attendee at both the Dutch and international (photography) exhibitions. He made reportages of the various openings, events, and meetings in which the NFK was involved (including Edward Steichen’s visit to the NFK on 30 October 1952 at Meinard Woldringh’s studio, when preparing for the exhibition The Family of Man).

For more than eleven years, Meeussen taught photography at the Vrije Akademie (‘Free Academy’) in The Hague, founded by Livinus van de Bundt. Meeussen’s teaching style was based chiefly on discussing photos: there was little opportunity, for instance, to do studio work or gain practical darkroom experience. Teaching at the Vrije Akademie had more the character of leading a study group: a relatively ‘open’ system, in which students (who were called participants) were free to take the classes that interested them.

Students of the academy at the time—such as Frederick Linck and Piet Janmaat, both photographers in The Hague—recall Meeussen as being someone who had the ability to speak about his profession with great enthusiasm in stimulating his pupils. He ventured out together with his classes to take photos in the city and helped them set up small exhibitions of their work at the academy.

Meeussen was highly involved in the many activities going on at the academy. He regularly photographed students working with their models, performances put on by the ‘podiumvorming’ (‘stage formation’) department, the painting and clay-modelling classes, and students at work in the sculpture studio. Meeussen’s most important teachers, Hans Tschira and Paul Wolff, were specialists in the area of 35mm photography. This was a major factor in Meeussen’s technique. Using this small format, he was able to achieve a high level of precision, as well as professional levels of sharpness and contrast.

As early as 1935–’36, Meeussen was already fully working with colour photography at the printing company Schünemann. Using a Bermpohl one-shot colour camera with three permanently installed filters, he took colour shots in the format 9×12 cm. The historical centre of Bremen, decorated with flags on the occasion of the Olympic Games, was the subject of colour photos that Meeussen shot in July 1936, which appeared in a newspaper supplement, as well including photos of the reception welcoming athletes from around the world. Through his next employer, Dr. Paul Wolff, Meeussen learned to work with 35mm colour photography. Wolff was a demanding teacher, who expected highly precise work from his assistant. As Wolff’s lighting assistant, Meeussen gained exceptional practical experience in working with lighting equipment at the Opel factories in Germany. Nitraphot lamps were used, with an intensity of up to 30,000 Watts in difficult circumstances.

In 1940 and 1941, Meeussen published a number of articles on colour photography in the magazine Kleinbeeld-foto (’35mm Foto’), covering topics such as his lighting work with Paul Wolff and the conditions for making good colour photos. It was Meeussen’s view that colour photography was really about a new style: ‘A colour photo must not be a coloured black-and-white photo. If form and light are without doubt the key elements of a black-and-white photo, then in a colour photo it should just as certainly be the colours. From them, we must start out! At the same time, we must never lose sight that colours are not simply a colour value, but also represent a certain emotional value. The warm colour red, for example, therefore generally embodies happiness, joy, excitement; the cool colour blue, by contrast, [embodies] silence, distance, loneliness.’ Prior to this, Meeussen professed that one can only speak of an achievement in colour, ‘once the great technical possibilities, which colour film possesses, are applied in a meaningful way with respect to the targeted motif, and to the potential that this in turn conceals within itself. Only when one succeeds in consciously implementing the elements of colour and form together, i.e. “fusing” them, as it were, into a result that truly has something to say, is one a colour photographer.’

Meeussen worked with small cameras, including the Leica (for 24×36 mm film), a Rolleiflex, and Rolleicord (both for 6×6 cm film), and a Petri-Half 35mm camera (18x24mm film). With these cameras he used different sized objectives (including a Telyt), with a focal length varying from 28mm to 40cm. He also owned a Brand-17 technical camera (a typewritten instruction manual for this camera is still preserved in his archive). According to Rein Meijer, however, Meeussen never used this camera.

Back in his days at the NFK in the 1950s and ’60s, Meeussen already printed a significant part of his black-and-white negatives archive. He also made black-and-white enlargements in the format 30×40 cm. With the exception of several photos taken for reportage assignments, this concerns primarily his autonomous work for exhibitions, publications, and at jury competitions, whether in connection with the NFK or not. For his clients, Meeussen generally worked with 35mm slide film.

Meeussen was a photographer who patiently waited for the most favourable conditions to get the best shot. Rarely was artistic direction involved. What he photographed was just as he had found it. What characterises Meeussen’s work is the personal—and therefore more or less identifiable—manner in which he approached his subjects. This stemmed from his choices with respect to camera angle, the fall of light, and the image crop. He could spend long periods of time looking for the best option to achieve the optimal integration of contrast and line for the image he had in mind. When having to work with speed, e.g. at fairs, automobile races, or spontaneous events occurring underway, Meeussen let the atmosphere of the moment guide him. In such situations, his photos sometimes lack sharpness—for example, in a photo of a young gypsy woman with her child from 1956—yet it is precisely this blur that makes the photo intriguing.

Victor Meeussen has left behind a technically perfect and visually captivating photographic oeuvre, which serves as an important document of an era. Due to the consistent high quality of his work, he can unquestionably be categorised among the best professional photographers in the Netherlands active in the 1950s and ’60s. Particularly within the NFK, Meeussen was able to demonstrate his sense of quality and his knowledge of the profession. In his autonomous work, he never achieved great heights. Some of his photos, however, are in no way inferior to works by photographers of greater renown, such as Meinard Woldringh and Pim van Os.

Documentation