Biography

Discussion

Dick van Maarseveen was a modest man. He never received any official schooling in photography and always greatly admired other well-known photographers. As he progressed, it became clear to him that he possessed a certain talent for photography, particularly in the areas of lighting and technical finishing. He also learned to trust his own qualities. Van Maarseveen especially enjoyed success as a photographer in the period around 1930, winning numerous awards for his autonomous work. Throughout his life, however, he chose to remain in the background. Characteristic of his work was his ‘invisible’ role as a professional photographer at parties hosted by the major oil companies.

Van Maarseveen saw himself as an observer: ‘I’ve experienced everything, but I was not a part of it. I was standing on the side. Perhaps because those things failed to really interest me.’ This comment probably had more to do with his personal nature—observing things from a distance—than a lack of interest, certainly when it came to photography.

Van Maarseveen was given an opportunity to set up his own photography department at the art gallery of his parents. In order to buy better equipment, he sold photographic supplies and chemicals. He frequently had his own photo taken by other photographers to gain insight into how they worked. With the exception of a brief internship in Berlin to study the bromoil ink transfer process, Van Maarseveen never received any official training. Instead, he expanded his own knowledge of photography by closely observing other photographers with whom he worked. He developed his own technical skills in the area of portrait photography by working at Godfried de Groot’s studio. It was there that he became acquainted with the style of the glamour portrait, which had a visible influence on his own work.

Willy Schurman taught Van Maarseveen the business approach necessary to run one’s own studio as a freelance photographer.

Working for Kodak in the late 1940s, Van Maarseveen learned the basics of colour photography, which he passed on to others via classes taught at his own studio.

After starting at his parents’ store, Van Maarseveen set up his own studio on the Theresiastraat in The Hague in 1927. It was a luxuriously furnished artificial lighting studio, where he quickly established a reputation as an artistic portrait photographer.

In 1931, Van Maarseveen moved to a new studio at Bezuidenhout 4 in order to expand his activities in the area of movie stills and general photography. In the magazine Bedrijfsfotografie (‘Corporate Photography’), Adriaan Boer wrote the following: ‘Seldom have we seen such a distinguished accommodation for photography in our country.’ Boer praised Van Maarseveen’s studio as well as his darkroom. With his well-conceived set-up, Van Maarseveen hoped to make up for his insecurity and lack of experience. By his own account, one disadvantage of his luxurious taste was that many potential clients simply just assumed his fees were exceptionally high.

In 1937, Van Maarseveen was forced to cut back his operations as a result of the economic malaise in portrait photography and the film industry. He fired three of his four employees, sold his inventory, and moved to a smaller studio at Bezuidenhout 78 with substantially reduced inventory. This building was located in a part of the street that ultimately survived the war. During the bombardment in March 1945, however, it was virtually ‘blown away’, resulting in the partial loss of his archive. Once Van Maarseveen returned to The Hague, his first task was to rebuild the studio. Although this studio served as his base until 1978, during the post-war years much of his work was done outside the studio, more so than before, primarily photographing at various locations on behalf of the oil companies.

Van Maarseveen began as a portrait photographer in the 1920s, a time when this specialisation still offered the professional photographer a degree of financial certainty. He was one of those photographers seeking innovation in portrait photography, like his counterparts in Amsterdam, Jacob Merkelbach and Godfried de Groot, with Van Maarseveen overseeing De Groot’s studio when he was away on holiday. Influenced by the glamour photography coming out of the fashion and film industry, Van Maarseveen introduced dramatic lighting, which eventually earned him the honorary title of ‘the master of light and shadow’. He always used backlighting to ensure the person portrayed came to the forefront.

Through his frequent contact with entertainers at Godfried de Groot’s studio, Van Maarseveen acquired a name for himself in the world of theatre and film. He eventually became the Hague’s own equivalent of Merkelbach and De Groot. Van Maarseveen shot photos for the dance group of Darja Collin, who ran a famous dance studio in The Hague. The quality of his photos was so remarkable that in subsequent years many entertainers chose Van Maarseveen to have their photos taken. Adriaan Boer’s discussion of his entry on the ‘Photographers Day’ of 1932 in Bedrijfsfotografie affirms that he was seen as a modern photographer even in the more conservative circles of the NFPV (Nederlandse Fotografen Patroonsvereeniging, ‘Netherlands Photographers Guild’): ‘D. v. Maarseveen, The Hague, always manages to produce work that is entirely free of the usual genre.’ Boer described a ‘highly fascinating portrait, which [Van Maarseveen] made of a lady en face [facing forward], a model richly decorated with pearls’ as a ‘superbly modern’ portrait, in all probability due to the glamour it conveyed.

Van Maarseveen also achieved notoriety through his ability to photograph children. He always ensured a child never had to sit for too long or was forced to sit still. Just as when he photographed stage scenes in theatre and film, Van Maarseveen photographed children precisely when their movement came to a standstill. The trade press praised Van Maarseveen not only for his portrait photography, but also for his nudes, with which he won a number of awards. In 1930, Adriaan Boer noted: ‘Two pretty nude photos from the collection of D. van Maarseveen, The Hague, are to be especially admired. The area of shadow with the female figure is a stunning discovery, and this dark area, which was also beautifully outlined, beneficially contrasts against the white skin. For the rest, there was a muscled male nude, exceptionally rich in tone and sublime in action at rest.’ This last photo—a man posing in a jujitsu hold—received an honourable mention at the jubilee exhibition of the Photographers Association of America in 1930. With nude photography, it was the line, the play of light, and the surface arrangement that concerned Van Maarseveen. Consequently, it is this aspect of his oeuvre that stands out as his most creative work. In terms of atmosphere, Van Maarseveen’s nude photography is comparable to that of Godfried de Groot.

After a slow start in 1931, Van Maarseveen became the most prominent still photographer in the Netherlands in the years 1933–1936. He worked on the set of popular Dutch films such as Op stap (‘Out on the Town’) and Op hoop van zegen (‘On Good Hope’), with Dutch actresses like Fien de la Mar and Esther de Boer-Van Rijk in the leading roles. By the time Van Maarseveen shot the portraits of these two stars, he was already very well known, even playing a small role himself in the film Op stap. He produced exquisite still photos for other films, including Het mysterie van de Mondscheinsonate (‘The Mystery of the Mondschein Sonata’) and Rubber. Van Maarseveen worked with glass plates and sheet film, typically in the format 18×24 cm. As soon as the shoot was completed, the still photographer went to work. Because the photos had to resemble the actual film scene as closely as possible, Van Maarseveen set up his tripod on the very spot where the film camera had stood just moments before. An ability to get along with the film’s director was important: his only interest was to quickly move on to the next take. Accordingly, Van Maarseveen had no more than two minutes to finish his shot. His exposure time was usually 1/10 of a second, requiring a great deal of concentration from the actors during the photo shoot.

In 1936, Van Maarseveen’s keen eye for lighting was used on the set of the film Jonge harten (‘Young Hearts’), directed by Charles Huguenot van de Linden. These years formed the pinnacle in Van Maarseveen’s career. Almost simultaneously, however, they also marked the end of his most creative period.

During the second half of the 1930s, film photography became an extremely unreliable source of income. The financing of films had become a complex matter, with Van Maarseveen earning only a small amount for each day he worked. After just a few ‘flops’, financial backers—who once perceived the Netherlands as a place to make big money in the era of sound films—abandoned the Dutch film industry virtually altogether, essentially leading to the demise of ‘Holland’s Hollywood’.

In the area of film, Van Maarseveen’s ambitions were by no means limited to film photography alone: he wanted to become a cameraman. But with the collapse of the Dutch film industry and the outbreak of the Second World War several years later, his desire never came to fruition. Van Maarseveen’s plans came no further than a few films, including two bizarre film interpretations of stories featuring the popular comic book figure ‘Dick Bos’. Alfred Mazure, Bos’ illustrator, directed the film, with the Dutch actor Maurice van Nieuwenhuizen playing the leading role. He also made two ‘try-out’ films on behalf of the Instituut Schoevers (‘Schoevers Institute’), which were well received. Van Maarseveen turned down an offer to work at Cinetone Studios, which was being closely monitored by the Germans at the time.

Like many others in his day, World War II brought an abrupt end to Van Maarseveen’s aspirations. In the early years of the war, he was able to continue working. In 1943, however, he too was held captive in Germany for an extended period of time as a prisoner-of-war. Van Maarseveen was sent to ‘Stalag IV B’ at Mühlberg on the Elbe, a ‘model’ camp where the Germans wished to show the world just how well they were treating their war captives. After approximately one year of living in the camp, Van Maarseveen was assigned work as a photographer in June 1944 through his contact with French prisoners held there the longest. Together with several others—including Cor van Weele, another Dutch photographer—Van Maarseveen was asked to photograph various kinds of official events organised in the camp, e.g. religious activities, theatre nights, and sporting events. He was also assigned the task of making ID photos for new arrivals to the camp. Funerals were also photographed. With the Germans’ approval, the family was given a print. ‘In order to demonstrate that the German Wehrmacht dealt with its prisoners-of-war in a decent manner. An illusion—and I had to photograph that illusion’, as he stated in an interview with Aad Wagenaar on 14 July 1984. There was no way Van Maarseveen could get out of doing propaganda work. With a background in jujitsu, however, his philosophy was ‘yield in order to survive’.

Living at the camp, Van Maarseveen learned to photograph with simple means, taking documentary photos of historical value in which aesthetics played no role. Whenever he had the chance, Van Maarseveen took clandestine shots, providing a more realistic view of the atmosphere at the camp. Cor van Weele also shot photos clandestinely at Mühlberg, though the two photographers had very little contact with each other at the time.

In the immediate aftermath of the camp’s liberation by the Russians, Van Maarseveen continued to photograph. In these photos, one can observe the chaos and the lack of organisation during the return trip to the Netherlands, but there is also evident joy. In 1982, the collection of photos and glass plate negatives that Van Maarseveen smuggled out of Camp Mühlberg with difficulty were retrieved. They were then subsequently transferred to the Rijksmuseum, where an exhibition devoted to this material was held in 1984.

Prior to the war, Van Maarseveen was chiefly known for his portraits and artistic photographs. Yet this period also marks the advent of his advertising and corporate photography produced after the war. Van Maarseveen had received his first commission from Texaco back in 1925, which entailed photographing the company’s newest tank truck. In the 1930s, he began delving into the various areas of advertising photography—probably pressed to do so in light of the economic uncertainty affecting still and portrait photography. This entailed shooting fashion photos for the Bijenkorf department store, published in the form of photomontages in various Dutch magazines. Van Maarseveen also did commercial advertising work for a chic barber salon and photographed the interiors of churches and other monumental buildings, including Huis Ten Bosch, the royal palace in The Hague. These latter projects were often done with future renovations in mind.

After considerable doubt, Van Maarseveen finally sacrificed much of his independence in exchange for a good-paying job as an advisor at Kodak in 1937.

Following the war, corporate photography became his primary source of income. He returned to his previous employer, Kodak, and did part-time work for this company for several years. There he did work on the introduction of the Kodak Ektachrome colour process in the Netherlands.

Van Maarseveen’s biggest client was the oil company Caltex (a subsidiary of Texaco and Chevron), for which he photographed ships, ship interiors, refineries, drilling platforms, celebrations, company parties, and openings. It was his client’s wish that the photos provide information in a direct manner. They were to be clear and in no way, paint a false picture. An important aspect was the accurate representation of perspective, especially when Van Maarseveen was photographing scale models of refineries. These images were intended for the Middle East, where they were to be used as visual models to assist with the actual construction of the photographed complexes. Van Maarseveen also photographed the Rijnmond pipeline and did work for Leerdam Glass.

Van Maarseveen’s corporate photography likewise conveys his vision of linear rhythm and the arrangement of the image plane. This work, however, comes nowhere near the artistic character of his pre-war photos. Van Maarseveen’s photography is more objective, for instance, than that of Victor Meeussen and Frits Rotgans, who were successful in giving the work they did for oil companies a more personal stamp.

In his early period, Van Maarseveen’s work is characterised by the dramatic and atmospheric use of lighting, combined with a fairly austere background. The implementation of multi-directional lighting—as well emitted from behind the model—was particularly important. With this romantic style, Van Maarseveen adhered to an ideal of beauty professed by photographers such as Godfried de Groot, Willy Schurman, and Jan Stokvis in the 1930s. They relied on a fashion-conscious, well-to-do clientele with an appreciation for international glamour photography. Van Maarseveen also applied his artificial lighting skills when shooting stills and working on film sets.

In his advertising and corporate photography, such romantic notions are nowhere to be found. These business fields had already identified themselves with the ideas of New Photography even prior to the war. The subject had to be shown as clearly as possible, void of romantic frill. This applied to fashion photos, but even more so to corporate photography shot on behalf of the oil companies. Qualities derived from depth of field were of tremendous value in such cases. More than anything, this branch of photography was above all technical in nature, entailing the use of a technical camera, a wide-angle lens, and a level. For his church interiors, Van Maarseveen combined these technical capabilities with his sense of contrasts in light.

Van Maarseveen did most of his work with a Rolleicord camera. In the prison camp at Mühlberg, he relied on a 10×15 cm Agfa folding camera with glass plates.

Later on in his career, Van Maarseveen saw how his self-acquired knowledge of photography was admired at the School voor Fotografie en Fototechniek (‘School of Photography and Photographic Technique’) in The Hague, specifically, in his function as an examiner and a member of the management board. Van Maarseveen had previously shared his knowledge of colour photography in the classes he gave at his own studio. One of his students was Bart Hoogwerff Eikelenboom, who, together with his brother Adriaan, established the first colour laboratory in the Netherlands—the developing centre ‘Hoogwerff Eikelenboom’—in 1952.

Dick van Maarseveen was first and foremost a professional. The autonomous work and still photography he produced prior to the war are his most outstanding achievements. Van Maarseveen was one of the few professional photographers in the Netherlands to hold a special place in the film industry: Jacob Merkelbach and Eva Besnyö were his sole ‘competitors’ in this area. Under the pressure of the changing, often trying circumstances of his lifetime, he remained flexible and adapted as best he could in order to devote his time to working with subjects that were new. The Second World War was clearly the dividing line. Prior to the war, his work was mainly artistic. After the war, it was chiefly objective. This was a choice that many photographers were obliged to make in the aftermath of WWII. With Van Maarseveen, however, the war seems to have stamped out much of his ambition. Notwithstanding, Van Maarseveen managed to produce an impressive documentary oeuvre during the war, one that is significant both for the history of the Netherlands and the history of Dutch photography.

Documentation