Biography

Discussion

Truus Nienhuis’ acuteness of mind and matter-of-fact attitude bordering on irony are unmistakeably recognisable in her modest photographic oeuvre, which has gradually been growing since the 1980s. Characteristic of her photos are their direct nature and a tendency towards objectivity. It is an aesthetic, harshly registrational view of the real world that radiates from Nienhuis’ photos. One finds no hierarchy in her work whatsoever: matters that are typically inconspicuous are a central theme. As such, an important place has been made for people in all their simplicity, along with interventions in their living environment. This often entails an eye for detail in the urban environment: patterns in facades, structures in the stone pavement, old ornamental fencing, or stone bollards worn down by the influences of weather and centuries of the human touch. Peoples’ (artistic) activity is relativized by the influence of nature with the passing of time. In her photo collages of objects found in nature, Nienhuis addresses a similar interest in the ordered structures of repetitive elements. Here nature does not appear in its usual chaotic exterior form, but in a strict ordering arising from human influence. Although Nienhuis in no way pretends to be producing ‘art’, she does make a distinction between her serious artists’ portraits, macro-shots, travel photography, and her more light-hearted (photo-) collages. The photos in this last category are less autonomous and are often fundamentally reworked.

It was not until 1980 that Nienhuis—who had just turned fifty and whose children had already left the family nest—learned to photograph. She was introduced to the profession by her son Hans, a violin builder by profession, who photographed in his free-time and had access to a darkroom in Arnhem. Nienhuis had little pretence when it came to her photographic work. She simply wanted to take snapshots of the family, friends, and the rural property on which they lived with her slide camera. After switching to a Nikon camera with various lenses, black-and-white film, and making use of her son’s darkroom, Nienhuis started working more professionally. The often-demanding photography assignments she received during this period from her artist friend, Jan Schoonhoven, were an important impulse for Nienhuis as a novice photographer. Nienhuis’ own perception of her photographic career became more serious after Schoonhoven urged her to take part in a photo competition with the motto ‘Boerderij in bedrijf’ (‘Farm in Operation’) for the magazine De Boerderij (‘The Farm’). She won first prize.

To improve her technique, Nienhuis followed three photography courses in the area where she lived during the mid-1980s. Schoonhoven felt this was a mistake and was concerned about her losing her photographic innocence. In the towns of Eerbeek and Brummen, she learned to make prints and discovered that using a good camera was by no means a guarantee for satisfying results. Her course instructor in Brummen, Ad van Lith, taught Nienhuis how to use a flash for additional lighting on a model posed in front of a local monument, the ‘Engelenburcht’ (a castle in Brummen). Nienhuis realised she wanted nothing to do with this kind of manipulation of reality and that she had no problem with small technical imperfections. Even later, she never resorted to flashes. When in a dark setting, Nienhuis always used a light-sensitive film and a wide aperture. In 1985, Nienhuis took another photography class for one week at the Volkshogeschool (‘People’s College’) in Eerbeek. The assignments in shooting narrative photos were particularly stimulating for her.

Initially, Nienhuis had great difficulty accepting the ‘brutality’ of her camera, especially when she wanted to photograph people. It was for this reason that, in the beginning, her photos featured only people’s backs or the back of their heads. At the same time, she eventually improved her printing technique and learned to photograph darker areas with greater nuance. During the years of World War II, Nienhuis regularly borrowed books from the personal library of a man named ‘Roodnat’ on the main market square in Delft. From 1942 to 1944, the fledgling artist Jan Schoonhoven worked behind the front desk of the library in Delft. Several years later, in 1947, Nienhuis would herself also come to work here. Through Anita Schoonhoven, a fellow colleague at the library, Nienhuis became acquainted with Anita’s husband (as well her eccentric predecessor), the artist Jan Schoonhoven (1914-1994). The meeting was highly significant for Nienhuis. Even if Nienhuis had shown very little interest in (visual) art up until this time, through the Schoonhovens she entered an artistic circle of friends and attended the jazz evenings, by then legendary, organised in their home under Anita’s direction. It was through Jan Schoonhoven that Nienhuis eventually met her future husband, the artist Henk Peeters.

Nienhuis spent the rest of her life in artists’ circles. Schoonhoven and Peeters were co-founders of the ‘Nederlandse Informele Groep’ (‘Netherlands Informal Group’), and later, the ‘Nulgroep’ (‘Zero Group’). The ‘Informele Groep’ presented a non-anecdotal, non-representational and expressionless ‘materieschilderkunst’ (‘material painting’), in which recognisable forms become lost in thick layers of paint, with personal gesture completely abolished. The ideology of the ‘Nulgroep’ was an extension of the ‘Informele Groep’, with the latter group existing only for a short time. ‘Nul’ (‘Zero’) was linked to the international art movements ‘Zero’ and ‘Nouveau Réalisme’ (‘New Realism’), subscribing to the most intensely possible, non-commentarial, sensual experience of everyday reality.

By means of isolation, repetition, and the strict ordering of simple (utilitarian) objects of Western consumerism, the members of the Nulgroep hoped to achieve an intensification of form, structure, and colour. Peeters, for instance, produced items such as tactile assemblages of cotton balls; Schoonhoven devised handmade, i.e. irregular, papier-mâché reliefs featuring elements that were repeated and drawings with simple repetitive signs. During the Nul period, artists such as Piero Manzoni, Yayoi Kusama, Günther Uecker, Heinz Mack and Otto Piene were welcomed into Peeters and Nienhuis’ home; holidays were spent in the vicinity of like-minded artists. In addition, members of the Dutch literary movement ‘de nieuwe stijl’ (‘The New Style’) paid regular visits. Whenever exhibitions were approaching, Peeters en Nienhuis’ living room was transformed into the epicentre of the activity.

In Nienhuis’ (photographic) work, an affinity with the Nul ideology is unmistakeably perceptible. Within the important international artists’ collectives Zero and Nouveau Réalisme, her photos are unique. Because the perception of everyday reality was given such high priority in these movements, it remains surprising that hardly any use was made of artistic expression made possible by photography. Characteristic of Nienhuis’ collages and assemblages is her passion for strictly ordered series of elements that are more or less identical. In these photos, it is the austere, seemingly neutral, non-idealised manner of registration and an eye for aesthetic structures that betray her background.

Nienhuis’ collaboration with Jan Schoonhoven holds a special place in her photographic oeuvre. After years in which the care of her children and her husband had been her primary responsibility, and following the death of Anita in 1978, Nienhuis’ contact with Schoonhoven intensified in a relationship that lasted from the early 1980s up until Schoonhoven’s death in 1994. From 1982–’83, Schoonhoven—an internationally renowned artist—began to give Nienhuis photography assignments for a minimum fee: initially five guilders per photo, later seven guilders. Virtually unhindered by any technical experience, Nienhuis photographed the rather inconspicuous details she encountered in the city of Delft. She did so based on Schoonhoven’s precise instructions, such as decrepit walkways, impressive masonry work, iron poles in the form of a swastika, or wash hanging out in an alleyway. Nienhuis’ images offer unique insight into the refined, formal-aesthetic way in which the ‘Nul’ artist viewed his surroundings and made this a theme in his work. As a document, the photos are an equivalent to a project on which the German artist Gerhard Richter had been working since 1962: the ‘Atlas’ was a substantial collection of photos and paintings that depict Richter’s perception of reality and the overall cohesion of his work. Similarly, several of Nienhuis’ photos in turn functioned as mnemonic devices for Schoonhoven, at a time when figurative elements began to appear with increasing frequency in his drawings in the 1980s, after years of non-figurative activity. A selection of these photos was eventually compiled in the book Enigszins Delft (‘Somewhat Delft’, 1989). Schoonhoven had also come up with the book’s title: all of the photographed locations were ‘somewhat’ attributable to Delft—in other words, comparable situations could also be found in other cities, as he reasoned. During his regular visits to Peeters and Nienhuis’ castle, Het Leusveld, Schoonhoven also went on to discover comparable photogenic objects in Zutphen. It was his impulse that eventually led to the conception of the series Enigszins Zutphen (‘Somewhat Zutphen’, 1990), which was never published. Nienhuis was so enthusiastic about this approach that she even went on to do the series Enigszins Brummen (‘Somewhat Brummen’, 1993), which was also never published.

In a separate category—forming a high point in Nienhuis’ work—was the photo series she published in the book Het huis vergaat met zijn meester (‘The House Deteriorates with its Master’, 1988). On the initiative of Bébert, a gallery and publishing house in Amsterdam, sixty-five photos were assembled that Nienhuis had taken on assignment for Schoonhoven. Besides architectural details, these photos feature Schoonhoven’s empty childhood home—and the place where he continued to live up until the early days of his marriage to Anita—as well as the interior of his small upstairs apartment at the time on the Vrouwjuttenland canal in Delft. Again Nienhuis presents herself as a sharp observer with an exceptional eye for significant details. In this series, she shows how life and art came together seamlessly in the life of an ex-employee of the Dutch postal service and a former member of the ‘Nul’ group. Schoonhoven’s obsession with the rhythmic ordering of repetitive elements was by no means limited to his reliefs and drawings, but had also expanded to include his entire home, as Nienhuis’ photos reveal. On the kitchen counter, he arranged apples in a row according to their ripeness; his shoes were carefully lined up under his bed. Elsewhere, the manner in which objects were positioned was even subtler, with chaos and decadence gradually making their way into the carefully devised organisation. To limit the damage of a leaking roof, Schoonhoven draped sheets on one side of the stairway leading to the upstairs floor. On transparent dividers separating the pages, Nienhuis recorded the terse comments that Schoonhoven made in response to her photos. The title of the book itself is also in reference to a remark made by the former artist of the Nulgroep. These were the words with which Schoonhoven rejected an offer to repaint the artist’s decrepit yellowed ceiling made by the owner of Gallery Bébert, Pablo van Dijk. Het huis vergaat met zijn meester provides detailed insight into the extremely private context in which Schoonhoven’s later work came to fruition: on the streets of Delft and sitting behind a white kitchen table, where all of Schoonhoven’s drawings and designs for reliefs were put on paper.

Truus Nienhuis’ numerous portraits of Schoonhoven form a special category of their own, appearing not only in Het huis vergaat met zijn meester, but also in the photgraphy portfolios Vrienden rond Jan Schoonhoven (‘Friends around Jan Schoonhoven’, 1996) and Herinneringen aan Jan Schoonhoven (‘Recollections of Jan Schoonhoven’, 1997), as well as those included in an exhibition catalogue that accompanied a posthumous, international retrospective of his work. The first portraits date from 1980, when Nienhuis was still making colour slides. The final portraits were made just days prior to Schoonhoven’s death on 31 July 1994. He appears in these photos with his remarkable attire in overcoat and his characteristically melancholy facial expression, isolated against a neutral background or pictured in hs natural surroundings: the city of Delft, his small house, a gallery, or during one of his stays at Het Leusveld. Through the unpretentious and direct manner in which Nienhuis depicts Schoonhoven, and the minimal mental distance between the subject and the photographer, these portraits convey the great intimacy between the two.

Besides Jan Schoonhoven, Nienhuis shot extensive series of portraits of other people in her life, including Henk Peeters, her artist friends, her children, grandchildren and their friends. She makes no distinction in the presentation of her subjects and tries to idealise people as little as possible, portraying them as plainly as can be. For this reason, Nienhuis rules out artificial lighting entirely, as it affects the naturalness of the situation. Although she regularly photographs people working in their everyday surroundings, she has no issue with poses shot in front of a neutral background. In the best of circumstances, Nienhuis manages to achieve a concentration in which the sitter’s personality is given optimal space for expression. In one of her portraits of Henk Peeters, dressed in a clothing design of his own, she managed to accentuate the roguish quality in his facial expression and physical gesture.

Another aspect of Nienhuis’ portraits is represented by a series created in 1994–1995, in which she combined photographic portraits with collages that included hair of the friends and acquaintances she portrayed. This newly discovered interest in people’s hair, as well as other forms of body hair, led to remarkable camera angles in her photo portraits. Liesbeth Brandt Corstius’ portrait shows only the back of the head. In the same series, Nienhuis eternalised Peeters by photographing the bald top of his skull. Together with strands of Peeters’ hair, stitched in a circular form on black fabric, this image forms the portrait Tweemaal Nul (‘Two Times Zero’). In 1995, the series was shown at two locations in Arnhem, under the title of Kijk haar (‘See Hair’).

The photos that Nienhuis shot during her travels in places such as Egypt, the Canary Islands, Morocco, and Israel, again affirm her interest in the human figure and the austere (urban) landscape. Also evident in this aesthetic black-and-white photography is her eye for unique structures and repetitive forms.

Completely different from what Nienhuis considers to be her ‘serious’ photography are the many collages she exhibited in 1992 under the collective name of Het genaaide bos (‘The Sewed Forest’), a project that has been expanding ever since. This concerns a residual category of photo collages, frequently painted, and assemblages of materials from nature that Nienhuis finds in the vicinity of Het Leusveld or during her travels abroad: branches, volcanic gravel, the hair of Scottish Highlanders, seed pods from a broom plant, grasses, and insect wings. She arranges elements that are essentially the same in simple geometric patterns. Since 1997, Nienhuis has exhibited this work separately from her other photos in her own De Schuur Gallery in Bronkhorst. The ambiguous meaning of the name bestowed on this series is based on Henk Peeters’ response to a question regarding his wife’s activities: ‘Truus is sewing half the forest together.’

After a brief start with a basic camera (a Minox) and colour slides, Truus Nienhuis photographs with a Nikon camera and light-sensitive black-and-white film, thus precluding the need for artificial lighting. After making proof prints on small-format PE paper, Nienhuis prints her final photos on baryta paper. With her austere photography—linked to the ‘Zero’ movement—Nienhuis holds a special place in Dutch photography. While it appears as if the interest in her work has increased in recent years, the photography of this autodidact has only received minimum attention in art historical literature on Dutch photography. This can in part be explained by the short period of time that Nienhuis has been active as a photographer, as well as the limited size and modest nature of her oeuvre. Recently, however, her work has begun to play a more substantial role in how artists such as Jan Schoonhoven and Henk Peeters are perceived. With the growing international fame of these artists and the increasing accessibility of her own work, one can expect the interest in Nienhuis’ photography to also grow.

Documentation