Biography

1908	Paul Gustave Sidonie (Paul) Guermonprez is born on 28 December in Ghent, Belgium. Together with his brother Oscar, he spends his childhood years in Brussels, where his father, George Charles Guermonprez, is employed as a civil engineer with the city. Paul’s father is an enthusiastic amateur photographer in his free time. He passes this interest onto his son.
1917–‘24	During World War I, George Charles Guermonprez is a soldier in the Belgian army. Due to the threatening war situation (the encirclement of Antwerp), the family flees to the Netherlands in 1917. Through contacts with the dredging company Bos & Kalis, they find a safe haven in Sliedrecht. From 1920 to 1924, Paul’s father is the director of Public Works in Helmond. The family then returns to Sliedrecht, where the father finds employment in a similar function.
1929–‘32	After having quit his study in the department of Chemie en Techniek (‘Chemistry and Technique’) at the MTS (Middelbare Technische School, ‘Intermediate Technical School’) in Dordrecht, Paul Guermonprez completes his studies at the Suikerschool (‘Sugar School’) in Amsterdam in 1930. In 1931 he travels to the Dutch East Indies, where he is hired for the sugar campaign on the island Kadipaten. Just prior to his departure, Guermonprez marries Arda Hessefelt. This marriage ends in divorce. In the Dutch East Indies, Guermonprez takes a series of photos depicting the day-to-day life of the people and the Indonesian culture.
	On 26 January 1932, Guermonprez is fired. This is due to the economic malaise, but also because he has spoken out against the unequal treatment of the Indonesian people by the Europeans.
1923–‘33	A growing interest in modern architecture, advertising, film, and photography is the motivation behind Guermonprez’s decision to study at the Bauhaus in Berlin. Starting in August 1932, Guermonprez attends the ‘Vorkurs’ (‘preliminary course’) in the departments of photography and architecture. Among his teachers is the photographer Walter Peterhans. In March 1933, the Bauhaus is permanently shut down by the National Socialists.
1933–‘34	Having returned from Berlin, Guermonprez is commissioned by Philips to collaborate on sound recordings for the film Willem de Zwijger (‘William the Silent’).
1934–‘39	Guermonprez is hired at the Nieuwe Kunstschool (‘New Art School’) in Amsterdam as an instructor of photography. Paul Citroen and Charles Roelofsz established the school in 1933, with the Bauhaus as its model. On 1 September 1935, Guermonprez is offered a similar position at the KABK (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, ‘Royal Academy of Art’) in The Hague, where he works with Gerrit Kiljan and Paul Schuitema in the department of ‘Reclameontwerpen’ (‘Advertising Design’). In 1939, Carel Tirion succeeds Guermonprez as the instructor of photography.
1934–‘42	On 1 April 1934, Guermonprez establishes his advertising agency ‘Co-op 2’ in Amsterdam. Co-op 2 is located at Keizersgracht 498 until 1 April 1937. The architectural firm of Jan van der Linden, an ex-Bauhaus student and the financial advisor of Co-op 2, is located in the same building. Guermonprez’s agency relocates to Leidsestraat 43, where he also resides. In the spring of 1942, Guermonprez closes Co-op 2 in response to the creation of the ‘Kultuurkamer’ (‘Chamber of Culture’) established under the Germans.
1937	Together with Jan Nederhorst, Guermonprez travels for a month around Yugoslavia, where he photographs the country’s inhabitants. Upon his return, he writes an account of his travels.
1939–‘41	On 1 April 1939, Guermonprez marries his second wife, Trude Jalowetz, a weaver originating from Czechoslovakia. The couple lives at Leidsestraat 43 in Amsterdam. In December 1941, they move to a farm in Voorschoten. From August 1939 to 6 May 1940, Guermonprez is mobilised as a conscripted soldier in the military. Following the German invasion, he sets up a ‘Centraal Inkoopkantoor’ (‘Central Purchasing Office’) for linden blossom tea. This substitute tea is harvested at various locations, including the Vondelpark in Amsterdam.
1940-‘44	In August 1940, Guermonprez becomes the director of the ‘Algemeen Secretariaat van de Nederlandsche Unie’ (‘General Secretary of the Netherlands Union’), a political organisation that aims to build a society on the basis of a broad nation-wide collaboration, a harmonious economic structure, and social justice. He succeeds in establishing a solid footing for the organisation of this ‘association of circa 800,000 members’. In January 1941, Guermonprez is arrested together with several other employees and is detained for three weeks in the prison at Scheveningen. On 4 May 1942, he is arrested once again and held as a hostage at Camp Beekvliet in Sint-Michielsgestel. He corresponds with Hendrik Werkman, a graphic artist in Groningen. Guermonprez’s wife, Trude, is forced to go into hiding. Guermonprez is ordered to report to Amersfoort as a prisoner of war in July 1943. He does so, but subsequently escapes from the barracks where he is being held. He joins the Raad van Verzet (‘Council of Resistance’), where he soon becomes one of the organisation’s leading figures.
1944	On 4 April 1944, Guermonprez is arrested. On 10 June, he is executed by a firing squad, together with Frans Duwaer, Gerrit-Jan van der Veen, Johan Limpers and Karel Pekelharing.

Discussion

Photography played a prominent role in the restless and turbulent life of Paul Guermonprez. With his death as a resistance fighter—shot in front of a German firing squad in 1944—an abrupt end came to a very promising career as a photographer, advertising creator, compiler of books, and a photography instructor. The few photos and articles surviving to the present day on one hand attest to his technical-objectivist orientation to the profession, in the spirit of the Bauhaus. On the other hand, however, a number of Guermonprez’s photos display a cruel humour conveying his embitterment and disappointment in human society. His sombre undertone appears to have been influenced by his personal experience with German National Socialism.

As with many photographers, Paul Guermonprez’s chosen profession can be traced back to his childhood years, when photography was one of his hobbies. Encouraged by his father, who himself was an enthusiastic amateur photographer, Paul built his own enlarger and set up a dark room in the family home. His first photos were taken of family members, acquaintances, and a girlfriend. They are portraits in which Guermonprez carefully experimented with camera angle, composition, and the possibilities of the close-up.

When Guermonprez sailed by ship to the Dutch East Indies in 1931—to work on a sugar plantation—he took his camera with him. During his voyage, he photographed the port cities and the ship’s interior. He also took an atmospheric backlit shot of a passing ship with the sun setting in the background. Upon arriving in the Dutch East Indies, Guermonprez became entranced by its culture. The landscape, with its characteristic ‘sawahs’ (irrigated rice fields), and the day-to-day life of the country’s inhabitants served as appealing subjects for Guermonprez’s camera. In doing so, he alternated between a registrational, somewhat detached documentary style and visual compositions drawn from New Photography. One of these photos—in which an Indonesian person can be seen in an anticipating, submissive pose—was published in 1933 in the avant-garde film magazine Filmliga (‘Film League’).

In January 1932, Guermonprez was fired from his job, in part because he took stand on the disparity between the Dutch colonists and the native Indonesians. This incident is typical of Guermonprez’s progressive ideas and his personal sense of justice. During his return trip home to the Netherlands, he wrote a letter to his parents telling them that he wished to head in another direction. He mentioned becoming a filmmaker, photographer, or a publisher/printer as potential professions. Within photography, he considered ‘advertising through photomontage and (or) typography’ as a possible way to earn a living during the years of economic depression.

In the summer of 1932, Guermonprez departed for Berlin, where the art school Bauhaus—following its closure in Dessau—was being continued as a private institution by the architect Mies van der Rohe. Van der Rohe’s predecessor, the Swiss architect Hannes Meyer, had introduced photography to the study programme in 1929 by taking on the photographer Walter Peterhans. Peterhans’ classes were taught within the advertising department at the Bauhaus, headed by Joost Schmidt until 1930. After this, an independent department of photography was set up, as was the case when Guermonprez followed the ‘Vorkurs’ (‘preliminary course’).

With his assignments, teaching methods, and staged still lifes, Peterhans exercised a tremendous influence on his students. His approach to photography was one of an analytically minded and observant technician. In his view, the mastery of technique led to the mastery of the medium, and ultimately, to insights about art. After a basic training in optics and the chemistry of the photographic medium, Peterhans’ students were often asked to construct still lifes.

A few of Guermonprez’s surviving photos are likely to have been taken during his preliminary year of study with Peterhans. These include a composition with matchsticks—a typical example of a Bauhaus structural exercise—a photogram, and several still lifes. The still life photo of a plucked chicken and an oval white dish, and another with a fish and a knife on a newspaper, are characterised by odd combinations of ‘objets trouvés’, an element likewise encountered in Peterhans’ own work. In addition to a surrealistic feel, Guermonprez’s still lifes have a sinister, even morbid undertone. The oval form of the plate alludes to the form of an egg—one of the most frequently photographed motifs during the years of New Photography, on which diverse meanings were bestowed—perhaps serving as a visual representation of post mortem and pre-natal. A similar photo depicting a dead chicken and an egg on a table was made by Wols (Wolfgang Schulze), who, though later becoming a well-known artist, was a fellow student in photography at the Bauhaus in the same year as Guermonprez. The symbolism of mortality expressed in these images seems far removed from the constructive spirit of the Bauhaus.

Guermonprez’s decision to return to the Netherlands was motivated by his anger and frustration resulting from the Nazis’ closure of the Bauhaus. He subsequently set out to apply his newly acquired knowledge in a practical way, by setting up the advertising agency ‘Co-op 2’ and teaching classes in photography. In the fall of 1934, Guermonprez was hired as an instructor at the Nieuwe Kunstschool (‘New Art School’) in Amsterdam. One year later, he was offered a position at the KABK (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, ‘Royal Academy of Art’) in The Hague.

The Nieuwe Kunstschool was a modest Dutch version of the Bauhaus, established by Paul Citroen and Charles Roelofsz in 1933. The purpose of this private institution was to cultivate the individual student through the development of the artistic element and gaining practical experience in the profession. The photography department had only a small number of students. Because Guermonprez taught his classes at Co-op 2’s studio, it was never quite clear if the students were receiving private lessons as assistants of Co-op 2 or within the framework of the Nieuwe Kunstschool.

In a written prospectus, Guermonprez described what he felt the study should achieve: ‘to get photography off the wrong track of “ART” (soft-focus lenses, bromoil prints, etc.) and to have it again become aware of its own possibilities. Instead of making art, experimental science.’ It was a two-year study divided into three phases. First, the students were to familiarise themselves with the cameras and material by covering the most essential properties of photography in a concise manner (the idea behind the Bauhaus preliminary course, the ‘Vorkurs’). In the second phase, additional attention was given to the expression of materials and surface texture, as well as the influence and nature of light. In the final phase of the study, the application of these technical insights was addressed in relation to all forms of photography—when necessary, together with the advertising department. Guermonprez’s study programme was largely founded on Peterhans’ technical methodology, as well as the theories of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, such as worded, for instance, in his influential Bauhaus books Malerei Fotografie Film (‘Paintings, Photography, Film’, 1925) and Von Material zur Architektur (‘On Materials in Architecture’, 1929).

In a class presented on 17 September 1936 at the Nieuwe Kunstschool that was open to the public, Guermonprez pointed out the fact that not one professional study programme in photography existed in the Netherlands. In his view, the Nieuwe Kunstschool was making an attempt to address this ‘by necessity in primitive fashion’.

Completely in the spirit of Moholy-Nagy, Guermonprez described photography as an ‘optic-chemical reproduction method’, and defined it as ‘image-forming by means of light on a light-sensitive material’. In his view, the photogram was the most elementary and characteristic product of photography. In a comparison between photographic observation and the human eye, Guermonprez underscored the additional opportunities made possible with the camera and the benefits to society that came with it, such as ‘the observation of time’, ‘rapid observation’ with a snapshot, and the scientific applications of X-ray and infrared photography. He also emphasised the tremendous communicative value of photography, which was equivalent to words in terms of ‘international speech’, and something that should be required subject matter at every school.

For the students of the Nieuwe Kunstschool, it was not just a knowledge of the chemical-technical aspects that was important, but also the optic insights and the design. Guermonprez expressly rejected the ‘engrained dogmas of the photographic aesthetic’, which specified, for instance, that the level of the horizon had to be at 1/3 the image frame and that blur was bad in all instances. At the same time he warned about establishing new rules as substitutes for the old ones. At another time alluding to Moholy-Nagy and the philosophy of the Bauhaus, he concluded his ‘public’ class with the following: ‘Most important is that we become aware that photography cannot allow itself to be limited by any single formalistic reasoning—its only limitation is that which the material imposes on us, and this too we must continually try to overcome.’

As of 1 September 1935, Guermonprez also began teaching photography classes at the KABK in The Hague, in the department of ‘Reclameontwerpen’ (‘Advertising Design’) established by Paul Schuitema and Gerrit Kiljan in the academic year 1930–1931. Bound to objectives associated with the advertising profession, they were the first to introduce photography in the Dutch art education system. Guermonprez succeeded Kiljan, who taught the full-time (‘dagcursus’) classes in ‘design and photography’ from 1930 to 1934. Under the motto of ‘practical-technical studies’—a title firmly reflecting the Bauhaus’ atmosphere of objectivity—the second-year students received lessons from Guermonprez seven hours a week. One of the students’ assignments was to photograph an egg against a white background. They were also asked to make reportages with themes such as ‘a day at the beach’ and ‘Amsterdam, City of Jews’. In Guermonprez’s evaluations of students’ work, he drew a distinction between technique, vision, and theory.

Guermonprez sometimes even carried out his own class assignments. One case in point is a remarkable reportage he made on beach life in Scheveningen, with sun-worshippers displaying not so much the (‘quintessential’) fun on the beach, but appearing more as ‘suffering objects’ in the blistering heat. On the reverse side of a snapshot of a man with a newspaper and a sunbathing woman, Guermonprez wrote the somewhat cynical remark: ‘While she burns, he reads the newspaper. She has the sun. He has the newspaper.’ In another photo, a man in a black suit rolls about uncomfortably in the sand; his bare forehead transpiring heavily in the intense sun. Guermonprez’s reportage is very different from a reportage made by one his students at the time, Henk van der Horst, whose eye was more drawn towards a female figure lying under a parasol and the play of light and shadow on a group of children at the beach in Scheveningen.

In the fall of 1938, Carel Tirion was named as Guermonprez’s successor in his function as the instructor of photography at the Nieuwe Kunstschool. Guermonprez continued to teach at the KABK in The Hague until 1942.

Guermonprez always combined his work as a teacher with his activities at Co-op 2, the advertising agency he founded together with Hajo Rose, a former student of the Bauhaus, on 1 April 1934. In the very same year, Rose—who had arrived from Berlin and was also employed as teacher in the advertising department at the Nieuwe Kunstschool—decided to end his collaboration with Guermonprez. The name Co-op 2 was derived from the socialist-motivated ‘Co-op’ projects conceived by Hannes Meyer in the 1920s. In theatrical performances, photography, and graphic art, Meyer had argued for a mutual collaboration among artists and an aesthetic based on purely technical utilitarian forms.

Co-op 2 was initially located at Keizersgracht 498, in the same building as the architectural firm of Jan van der Linden, who was also a former student of the Bauhaus and the financial advisor of Guermonprez’s agency. In 1937, Co-op 2 relocated to the Leidsestraat, where Guermonprez would eventually live together with his second wife, Trude Jalowetz, starting in 1939. Stated on one of Co-op 2’s letterheads was the following text: ‘advertising agency, advice, design, photography’. A second letterhead stated: ‘studios for graphic design, drawing work, spray painting, typography, photomontage, film, design, stereotyping, printing’. Among Co-op 2’s freelance employees and apprentices were Lex Metz, Violette Cornelius, Paul Hartland, Wim Brusse, Otto Treumann, Atie Siegenbeek van Heukelom, Leo Meter, and Kryn Taconis. In 1939, Charles Jongejans was taken on as the agency’s assistant director.

The work done at Co-op 2 was highly diversified, ranging from the design and production of advertising campaigns, book covers, and children’s toys to stand design and compiling illustrated books. Following in the footsteps of typographic innovators Piet Zwart, Paul Schuitema, and Gerrit Kiljan, Guermonprez also tried to incorporate photography and typography in his advertising commissions. In an unpublished article, entitled ‘Fotografie als vormmiddel in de reclame’ (‘Photography as a Means of Form in Advertising’), he argued for a form of advertising that was honest and objective and honest by means of photographs. In his view, photos were more convincing than an illustrated ad or the spoken and written word, which were incapable of conveying a direct impression of the product. Together with his co-workers, Guermonprez devised advertising campaigns for Duyvis Mayonaise and REA (Radio Electro Automaat). He also designed a photomontage for the Veemarkt Square in Rotterdam.

Starting in 1936, Guermonprez devoted his efforts to compiling small illustrated books, complete with a typography that was designed throughout as well as quotations, which were then distributed among publishing companies. These books were often published under the pseudonym Benjamin Cooper (read: ‘Co-Op-er’), so as to convey the collaborative nature of these projects, made with the help of his assistants. Among the titles were: Adams vijfde rib (‘Adam’s Fifth Rib’), Wormerveer (Uilenreeks) 1936; Eva’s jongste dochter (‘Eve’s Youngest Daughter’), Amsterdam (Uilenreeks) 1938; In het doolhof der liefde (‘In the Labyrinth of Love’), Amsterdam (Uilenreeks) 1938; De zingende walvisch (‘The Singing Whale’, an anthology of sailor songs), Amsterdam (Uilenreeks) 1938; Zeven maal zeven Vredesstemmen aller tijden en Volken (‘Seven times Seven Voices of Peace of All Times and Peoples’), The Hague 1939; and Praktisch Bezuinigen (‘Practical Economising: Home, Garden and Kitchen Tips in Days of Rationing’ by P. Guermonprez and A. Siegenbeek van Heukelom’), Amsterdam 1940. This last book consisted of tips for the housewife on how to efficiently deal with the scarcity of food and household supplies during the first year of the German occupation. In retrospect, Co-op 2 functioned as a breeding ground for young talent, with Guermonprez as its motivating organiser. Following the war, Cornelius and Taconis achieved notoriety as reportage photographers, while Treumann and Jongejans became well known as graphic designers.

One example of Guermonprez’s applied photography is a close-up shot of a doll’s hand with a porcelain eye. This shot was used as a cover for a special issue of De Groene Amsterdammer (‘The Green Amsterdammer’), entitled ‘Het oog in de hand’ (‘The Eye in the Hand’, 19 June 1937), which was published on the occasion of the exhibition Foto ’37 at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In the magazine’s introduction, the editors wrote: ‘the human eye, as it were, is no longer attached to the body. One can hold it in one’s hand and adjust it to any desired setting.’ In this context, the combination of a hand and an eye in Guermonprez’s photo appears to refer to the photographer’s subjective emotional world (the hand of the maker), as well as new applications in the area of photojournalism and reportage photography (the manoeuvrable eye). The objectivity that Zwart, Kiljan, and Schuitema had always been striving for—symbolised in Schuitema’s renowned self-portrait of 1929, in which the (objective) camera lens has replaced the (subjective) eye—was no longer the sole solution. As Guermonprez emphasised in his study curriculum at the Nieuwe Kunstschool, there was a reason for this: photography was more than just a technical process, it also required a ‘personal vision of the object’.

Besides a New Objectivist mentality (expressed more in his texts than in his photos) and a feeling for the absurd, Guermonprez’s oeuvre was also shaped by his engagement with other people. This mentality is also observable in two of his travel reportages. In 1935, Guermonprez made a series about homeless people living along the Seine River in Paris. He photographed these derelict figures from the boulevard above: sleeping and rummaging in the garbage, transformed into a pile of misery. These are sad images of a sub-human existence, offering few prospects for a better life. While on holiday in Yugoslavia in 1937, Guermonprez also photographed mainly people. The surviving account of what he observed reveals just how impressed he was by the inhabitants of this country: ‘in all their boundless poverty, covered in rags, these Croatians are among the most beautiful and well-built people of Europe.’ Guermonprez photographed the Yugoslavian people in their day-to-day lives: gypsies sitting along the road, the scarred face of an old man wearing eastern-European attire, and a seller at the market, who imitates the photographer’s movement by holding an egg in front of his eye. These are photos taken by an outsider, a tourist, who perhaps observed something of his own character reflected in the proud and wilful nature of the various Yugoslavian peoples. Here the formalism of New Objectivity is transformed into an interest in other cultures and peoples, within the overall theme of humanity. Although the series on Yugoslavia was never published, it may still be considered—like his photos of the homeless people along the Seine—as an example of Guermonprez’s human interest photography,

With the outbreak of the World War II in 1939, Paul Guermonprez was mobilised as a conscripted soldier. In August 1940, he became involved in the Nederlandse Unie (‘Netherlands Union’), a political organisation that hoped to break away from the stifled thinking of the pre-war years by cooperating with the German occupying forces. As the director of the ‘Algemeen Secretariaat’ (‘General Secretariat’), Guermonprez was in charge of the membership administration.

In the spring of 1942, Guermonprez shut down his advertising agency Co-op 2—a move intended as a protest against the establishing of the ‘Kultuurkamer’ (‘Chamber of Culture’) under the Germans. In the same year, he was taken captive and imprisoned at Camp Beekvliet in St.-Michielsgestel, where he worked on a textbook addressing the subject of photographic technique. He also took several photos of his fellow prisoners and the living conditions inside the camp. When required to report as a prisoner of war in July 1943, Guermonprez escaped from the barracks at Amersfoort and subsequently joined the Dutch resistance movement. He was again arrested by the Germans, however, and on 10 June 1944, he was shot dead by a German firing squad at the age of thirty-six. The archive and negatives at Co-op 2 were all lost directly after the war. In 1976 and 1985, Guermonprez’s heirs donated two hundred prints, together with his correspondence and his notes compiled in folders, to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Paul Guermonprez’s interest in photography was—just as his life—brief but intense. His actions were not so much a product of political engagement, but stemmed from his desire for adventure. Guermonprez viewed himself as ‘socially maladjusted’ and ‘a reluctant freebooter’. Based on his strong sense of justice and his progressive ideas, he felt a connection with the artistic and societal innovation of the Bauhaus. As a photography instructor at the Nieuwe Kunstschool and the KABK in The Hague, Guermonprez imparted the ideals of the Bauhaus to a large number of students in the Netherlands. An eye for the absurd—by Dutch standards uncommon—and a bitter sense of humour are characteristic for his photographic oeuvre. While Guermonprez was no major innovator, his photos hold their own unique place in Dutch photography produced during the interbellum.

Documentation