Biography

Discussion

Ernst Loeb already showed an interest in photography as a student in secondary school, purchasing his first camera at the age of sixteen. Once he began to take photographs, he simply could not stop. Nevertheless, this fanatic amateur photographer will always chiefly be remembered as a co-founder of the NCvFK (Nederlandsche Club voor Fotokunst, ‘Netherlands Club for Photographic Art’) and the magazine De Camera, as well as being the author of the popular booklet Kunstfotografie voor den amateur (‘Art Photography for the Amateur’, 1922). Loeb’s photographic career reveals his multifaceted nature: a board member, editor, speaker, much-demanded jury member for photo competitions, and the author of articles for the magazines Lux, De Camera, and Focus. His demanding job never stopped him from taking on countless extraneous functions. In 1910, he was the co-founder and board member of the Nederlandsche Bond van Confectie-fabrikanten (‘Netherlands Federation of Clothing Manufacturers’). From 1909 to 1915, Loeb alternated between the functions of chairman and secretary on the board of the NCvFK. In 1912, he also became the secretary of the ‘Vereeniging tot vorming eener collectie fotografiën in het Museum van Kunstnijverheid te Haarlem’ (‘Association for the Formation of a Collection of Photographs at the Museum of Applied Arts in Haarlem’). Through the diversity of the positions he held, Loeb’s career gives the impression he was a jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none. While his naivety did occasionally give rise to precarious situations, external causes were typically to blame for his problems experienced along the way. Moreover, he most certainly enjoyed a number of successes, undoubtedly in part based on his undying optimism. Loeb clearly took every endeavour he pursued to heart. Together with his clear, didactic style of writing, Loeb’s enthusiasm formed the basis of the tremendous popularity of his books among amateur photographers and earned him all-round praise.

Loeb was descended from a mercantile family. In his own career, however, he was not always as successful as some of his family members. His father’s clothing store in The Hague, which worked with payment by instalment, was tremendously lucrative. In no time, Nathan Loeb established similar ‘pay by instalment’ stores in various cities across the country: in Amsterdam, Arnhem, Groningen, Haarlem, Leiden, and Utrecht. Some of these stores were owned by Nathan Loeb alone, while others were owned together with his brother, Leopold. Besides men’s clothes, the stores also began selling women’s clothing, shoes, fabrics, furniture, etc. In the end, most were eventually passed on to their managing supervisors, who were often family members as well. The store on the Noordeinde in The Hague was the only business that Nathan Loeb ended up keeping for himself.

In 1897, Ernst entered employment with his father and his uncle, Asser Cohen, at A. Cohen & Co., a store established in Amsterdam in 1894. Over time, Ernst Loeb eventually became a co-partner. The company began to demand more and more of his time, with the consequence that, from 1917 on, his photographing activity came to a virtual standstill, except within his own family circle. In spite of his demanding job at the office and in the factory, around 1910 Loeb also became a co-founder and member of the board of the Nederlandsche Bond van Confectie-fabrikanten, established in response to the growing activities of the social-democratic trade unions. Loeb’s bankruptcy in 1922 led to his decision to start up a photo retail business, which he soon after handed over to his assistant. Following his move to The Hague in 1924, Loeb tried out his luck at selling radios. Initially, he experienced reasonable success with the sale of his radio-building sets and devices, that is, until he acquired and resold a large supply of faulty equipment. Shortly thereafter, Loeb switched from radio to 8 mm film, which proved to be more fruitful: ‘Taking advantage of my notoriety in the amateur world, which I had acquired as chairman of the Ned. Club voor Fotokunst [‘Netherlands Club for Photographic Art’] and as a writer, I was able to achieve a satisfactory degree of success with this right away.’

Loeb had taken his first steps in the field of photography while in secondary school, when building cameras obscura using mirrors and lenses. During this time, he also received painting lessons from Jacques Zon, a young painter commissioned by Loeb’s father to copy Vermeer’s painting View of Delft. After Loeb was held back twice at the Gymnasium (a Dutch prep or grammar school), his father sent him to Germany to become an apprentice at clothing manufacturing companies in Halle and Berlin.

It was in Halle that Loeb bought his first camera, with which he experimented passionately. He wrote about this in his memoires: ‘my first Christmas gratuity in the form of a gold coin of 20 Mk [mark] was soon exchanged for my first primitive photo camera, with which my photographic career started off. My roommate and I took our first steps in this hobby together, we concocted the necessary chemicals together and at night when it was dark, [we] developed and spilled in our room, as it was a true passion. (…) It was a 9×12 tripod camera, that we started out with.’

Years later, in the magazine De Camera (1910, p. 181), Loeb related another anecdote from this period: ‘It was in 1894 or 1895 when I, living in Berlin, visited my photography dealer to stock up on some plates for my picture-taking. “But now I have an authentic coat-pocket camera,” the salesman said to me, triumphantly presenting a small 9×12 camera, the first folding camera for hand-use that I had ever been shown. I now no longer recall the make, but what I do remember is that the coat pocket, in which one could supposedly stow the camera away, would had to have been larger than the usual dimensions.’

According to his memoires, Loeb took drawing lessons from the painter Henri Koetsier around 1900. A couple of years later, he designed lamps and furniture in the style of Berlage, De Bazel, Landré, and Eissenlöffel for the new lodgings where he was living, together with his wife, Esther. Throughout his life, Loeb was greatly interested in art. He practiced various forms of art as a dilettante. Only in photography, however, did he feel he had achieved a level of note. In the 1930s, Loeb began working in the area of 8 mm film and became a member of the Smalfilm Liga (‘8 mm Film League’).

Several years following his return from Germany, Loeb came into contact with the chemistry student Eli Swaab. Via C.J. van Ledden Hulsebosch—a pharmacist’s son and later a well-known criminologist/police chemist and author of articles published in Focus and other publications—Swaab and Loeb became members of the AAFV (‘Amsterdamsche Amateur Fotografen Vereniging, ‘Amsterdam Amateur Photographers Association’). According to his memoires, Ernst Loeb was initially more interested in the technical side of photography, that is, until at a certain point, he became captivated with Pictorialism: ‘While it was first my intention to fully master photographic technique, around 1900 there emerged in England and Germany and America a movement, which I will define here briefly as ‘art photography’, and which I absorbed with tremendous zeal. It was a response, put forth by skilled amateurs, to the appallingly diminished level of the majority of professional photographers due to retouching and bad taste (…).’

On 10 December 1907, ‘several friends of photographic art’—including Loeb—gathered together at Café De Kroon in Amsterdam. This meeting led to the founding of the ‘Nederlandsche Club voor Fotokunst’, abbreviated NCvFK. Following the example of the British association ‘The Linked Ring’, the aim of this club was to promote art photography. Starting with the very first management board elected during this founders’ meeting, Ernst Loeb alternated between the functions of secretary and chairman. He was initially the club’s secretary; in 1909, he was chosen to be the chairman at the annual general meeting; in May 1910, he was again chosen as chairman; in May 1912, he again became secretary; in March 1914, he was rechosen as secretary; on 9 April 1914 again as chairman, as was the case again in January 1915.

About this period, Loeb wrote the following: ‘I was then active in the Amsterdamsche Amateur-Fotografen Vereeniging, which maintained an extensive domestic and foreign reading table. Very many discussions were held there regarding the ‘new’ photography with its new processes. For and against, and soon, there emerged a small group of young men, who promoted ‘photo art’ in the Netherlands and of which I was a very enthusiastic member. For quite some time, I was the secretary of this Ned. Club voor Fotokunst [‘Netherlands Club of Photographic Art’], and after that, chairman. In these qualities, I was naturally very much involved with places abroad, with the planning and organising of exhibitions, with writing articles for magazines and newspapers. Considering the assertive nature of the club, there were naturally often polemics in the trade journals to be dealt with and all of this I did with great fervour, likewise taking photographs avidly and keeping myself abreast of all kinds of new processes.’ It was in this vein, for instance, that Loeb introduced the members of his club to the photographer Erwin Quedenfeldt, who presented a lecture to the group in 1913. Loeb also familiarised his own readers with this photographer.

Because the association was solely oriented to Pictorialism, it did not see itself as competition for other existing associations. Yet the AAFV, in particular, viewed the NCvFK members as deserters and appeared as if it felt threatened by the new club. Nevertheless, the NCvFK took part in the exhibition organised by the AAFV in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, entitled Internationale Tentoonstelling van Fotografische Kunst (‘Internatonal Exhibition of Photographic Art’) in 1908. This was perhaps because two NCvFK members—Loeb and Van Hees—were also part of the executing committee.

During a meeting held in 1911, the NCvFK revealed its initial plans for establishing a photography museum. Almost one year later, on 15 March 1912, the NCvFK officially announced in De Camera that it planned to ‘take steps in realising the compilation of a collection of photographs of historical and artistic significance in a Dutch Museum.’ What they were therefore seeking was a department in an existing museum. Their choice fell on the Museum van Kunstnijverheid (‘Museum of Applied Arts’), which was located in the Welgelegen Pavilion in Haarlem. On behalf of the NCvFK, Berend Zweers approached the director of the museum, E.A. von Saher, who responded enthusiastically and managed to convince the museum’s supervisory commission. A committee was subsequently set up to further work out the plans. In addition to the committee’s chairman, Von Saher, it included the photographers B.J.V. van Hees and Ernst Loeb, in their respective roles as vice-chairman and secretary. The photographers Adriaan Boer, Johan Huijsen, and Berend Zweers were named as commissioners. As well including members from other amateur photographers’ organisations, the committee was changed into an association bearing the name ‘Vereeniging tot vorming eener collectie fotografiën in het Museum van Kunstnijverheid te Haarlem’ (‘Association for the Formation of a Collection of Photographs in the Museum of Applied Arts in Haarlem’). The association’s aim was to create a collection with the very best photos from the Netherlands and abroad, with an emphasis placed on the most recent period. In the 15 February 1913 issue of De Camera, the committee was able to gladly announce that a beautiful collection of (early) British photographic art had been exhibited in the museum, with works by Octavius Hill, H.P. Robinson, J. Whitehead, James Craig Annan, and others. With this exhibition, it was hoped that funds could be collected in order to acquire several of the works exhibited on behalf of the photography museum. Rudolph Dührkoop donated six portraits to the museum’s collection; Whitehead, two landscapes.

With the worsening economic circumstances brought on by the outbreak of World War I, the supervisory board decided to briefly forestall plans for the museum, thereby halting requests for contributions from its members. Four years later, the plans were resumed on the initiative of Adriaan Boer, who regularly addressed the matter in Focus. By this time, however, the other board members had lost their interest. The director Von Saher had passed away, and in 1926, the Museum van Kunstnijverheid shut its doors permanently.

Precisely how many art photos Loeb shot in the years of his activity as a photographer remains unclear. There is no doubt, however, that he was a highly prolific writer. In 1907, Ernst Loeb and Adriaan Boer co-founded the magazine De Camera. For the magazine’s first two years, they both functioned as its editors. Adriaan Boer continued doing so until 1914, at which time he set up the magazine Focus. De Camera was the official trade publication of various photography associations, including the de NCvFK, the HAFV (‘Hague Amateur Fotografen Vereniging’), de AFR (Rotterdam), and the AFV in Apeldoorn (years of publication 1915/16).

Besides editorial pieces for De Camera, Loeb wrote articles covering a wide array of topics for Lux, De Camera, and Focus. In addition, he published two books on the subject of photography. Loeb’s readership extended beyond Dutch borders, as he also submitted an article with photo on at least two occasions to the Deutscher Camera- Almanach (‘German Camera Almanac’).

In his articles, Loeb discussed topics such as composition, technique, and cameras. For the accompanying illustrations, he resorted to his own photos as well as examples of paintings. In the article ‘Hoe groot?’ (‘How Big?’), he provided information such as guidelines for determining the dimensions of a print intended for exhibitions and contests, or the relationship between the format and the nature of the subject, such as a robust landscape as opposed to a refined still life. In the series ‘De man en zijn werk’ (‘The Man and His Work’), Loeb wrote of his great admiration for the work of fellow photographers Bernard F. Eilers, J. Huijsen, and D. de Jonge. In each case, he considered the photographer’s personality.

Loeb examined not only Dutch photography. In the article ‘De Club en haar werk, “De Hamburgers”‘ (‘The Club and its Work, The Hamburgers’), he introduced the work of German art photographers that could be seen at almost every international exhibition of any importance, but which ‘persistently fails [to appeal] to the general taste’. Loeb praised the passionate dedication of this German association, which had managed to organise an exhibition of quality art photography every year since 1893, though he characterised the work from Hamburg in its early stages as ‘a somewhat exaggerated tendency towards the absolute non-photographic.’ While the Hamburg work perhaps failed to appeal to Dutch tastes, he was nevertheless of the opinion that one had to learn to appreciate it for ‘the doggedly persistent searching for new paths’. He likewise expected that reproductions published in De Camera—specifically, Trink’s Farbige Schatten (‘Colourful Treasures’)—would spark debate. Farbige Schatten was a shot of long shadows cast onto snow by a group of trees in the background. The photo featured blur as well as contrasting grey tints that were so subtle, it could be mistaken for a drawing if not known otherwise. Loeb himself had also taken similar shots of shadows in the snow, but his were still obviously photographic works, lacking Trink’s pastel effect.

Based on photos sent in by readers of De Camera, Loeb decided to start a column called ‘Over Compositie’ (‘On Composition’) in the magazine’s second year of publication. In these written pieces, he provided the reader with simple rules for obtaining a favourable composition, the use of light and shadow, the central theme, the crop, etc., without laying them down as laws for the amateur photographer. In the third year, Loeb continued this series, next focusing on the topic of ‘figure and landscape’. He based his approach loosely on an article by Puyo in the Revue de Photographie, whose photos he also used as examples. In these articles, as well as his book Kunstfotografie voor den amateur (‘Art Photography for the Amateur’) published in 1922, Loeb elucidated his texts with pen drawings and art photos of his own making, as well as art photos taken by other pictorialists.

In addition to these didactic articles, Loeb wrote highly critical pieces whenever he saw fit. In the second year of De Camera, he voiced stern critique—using the pseudonym of ‘Invictus’—regarding the policy of the Dutch submissions to the 1910 exhibition in Brussels. Loeb had nothing positive to say about the manner in which works by members of the NCvFK had been pushed to the wayside. In his view, no one could reasonably claim that Dutch photography was adequately represented in Brussels, as had been stated in the press. According to Loeb, the works were rejected, not for their quality, but for the sole purpose of harassing the NCvFK. This accusation drew a response from an indignant P. Clausing, who in turn accused the NCvFK of having insisted upon submitting its work collectively, with the club therefore having no one to blame but itself. As a consequence of Loeb’s direct attack, Wieger Idzerda approached the ‘Commissie voor de afd. III der Internationale Tentoonstelling‘ (‘Committee for Department III of the International Exhibition’) to demand that a sub-committee be set up to ensure the exhibited collection was augmented with works by those who had been excluded. These efforts nevertheless failed to produce the desired result.

Loeb had used the pseudonym ‘Invictus’ in the past for an article concerning the work of A. Marshall as well as his articles on composition. Even in those cases where the name Invictus (Latin for invincible, unshakable) appeared in the heading of some articles, Loeb’s name could always be found in the magazine’s index or accompanying his photos. This, and the fact that he once used the same pseudonym for his column, indicates his use of an alias was not just to anonymously voice brazen critique. It is therefore somewhat surprising that Invictus’ identity would have been a mystery to his adversaries in the polemic described above. Similarly, the identity of the writer publishing in Lux under the pseudonym ‘Optimist’ was ascertainable by simply consulting the magazine’s index: E.A. Loeb.

In 1922, Uitgeverij Focus published Loeb’s book Kunstfotografie voor den amateur (‘Art Photography for the Amateur’), a collection of Loeb’s texts that had appeared as a series in the magazine Focus in 1915. The book also included a chapter written by Adriaan Boer on the ‘pigmogravure’ (i.e. bromoil printing) process. Another section of the booklet summarised the principles that Loeb had previously unveiled years before in his series ‘Over Compositie’ in De Camera. Accompanying the text were reproductions of photos taken by various Dutch pictorialists, including Adriaan Boer, H. van Winkoop, Bernard F. Eilers, J.C. Mol, Richard Polak, and Léonard Misonne. The book also included seven reproductions of Loeb’s own photos. In this written work, Loeb devoted attention to topics such as the photographer’s equipment, the subject matter of the photo, and, in a chapter on proportion, ‘photographic aesthetics’. In it he wrote: ‘Because how does a technically well-executed snapshot distinguish itself from an “art photo”? Chiefly through this, that the first provides a random fragment of reality, taken solely for the sake of that reality, whereas the art photo strives to represent the aesthetic experience of that reality.’ In lucid terms and without becoming dogmatic, Loeb provided guidelines for a favourable composition and proper proportion, thereby emphasising the use of composition as a means of expression. He held no reservations when it came to warning his intended reader—an amateur with a degree of technical knowledge—to beware of errors that were easily made. Loeb wrote with a sharp pen: it is not the process applied that makes a photograph an art photo, but a composition that is well conceived in both the constructive and expressive sense, followed only then by one’s choice of process.

Loeb’s second book came out in 1933, with the title De kleine camera en wat men er mede doen kan. Een leidraad voor den gebruiker van de kleine camera, zoowel voor den beginner als voor den gevorderden amateur (‘The Small Camera and What One Can Do With It. A handbook for the user of the small camera, both for the beginner and the advanced amateur’). By ‘small camera’, Loeb meant a 3×4 cm roll film camera. As well in this book, he devoted attention to aesthetic aspects of photography, again illustrated with small sketches. The emphasis here, however, lay on the equipment and the technical side of photographing with a small camera. Of the 107 illustrations in this book, more than thirty-five photos were ‘(…) taken from the amateur practice of the author and his immediate surroundings’. The book includes virtually no pictorialist photos, but mainly sharp landscape photos with many taken in Germany, cityscapes primarily in The Hague, and several portraits. In no way did these photos of the most customary subjects therefore purport to be ‘art photography’. Instead, they served as illustration material to support the text, intended for the average amateur photographer. Loeb also devoted a brief text to the topic of evening and night shots, illustrated with one of his interior shots so widely admired in Focus. Besides his own photos, the book also included numerous images of cameras, accessories, and developing equipment.

In 1926, Loeb wrote about radio as a hobby in Focus. At the time, the phenomenon of radio was viewed as potential competition for amateur photography. Loeb, who by then had made a commercial switch from photography to radio, stated that this applied only to those whose interest lay chiefly in the technical side of photography. The movie theatre, in his opinion, was more to be blamed for the decline of art photography than radio. Loeb maintained that the art photo had been ‘industrialised’ by the arrival of film, which had a certain refinement facilitated by technical tools and arc lighting, as well as first-rate film directing and actors. A good film was therefore essentially a rapid sequence of ‘mechanised art photos’ passing before the eyes of spectators in the movie theatre.

In 1932, Loeb devoted an article in Focus to the postage stamp designs of Gerrit Kiljan and Piet Zwart for the year 1931, making the Netherlands the first country to use photos and photomontage to devise the definitive image of a postage stamp. While apparently not knowing the designers Zwart and Kiljan on a personal basis, he criticised both for coming up with designs that were overly detailed for such a small format. Loeb reasoned that photography focused in precisely on the detail, whereas detail in the postage stamp had been abandoned over the years in favour of the broader line, given its limited format. Loeb, who years before had devoted an article to the choice of a printing format, was therefore of the opinion that photography was not the appropriate process for this format, and correspondingly, for the postage stamp in general.

Loeb was a member of the ‘Smalfilm Liga’ (‘8 mm-film League’), an organisation founded by Dick Boer, Dick Laan, and J.C. Mol in 1931. In 1933, Loeb addressed the topic of film in an article as part of a Focus series entitled ‘Bioscoopgedachten’ (‘Movie Theatre Reflections’). He reviewed the film Ich will nicht wissen, wer Du bist (‘I do not want to know who you are’) from his perspective ‘as an 8 mm-film and league man’. While describing the film as the ‘absolutely worst kind of saccharine kitsch,’ he was nevertheless impressed by its film shots of a trip to Italy via Switzerland, which appeared to him as ‘(…) the depiction of a very specific psychic sensation (…).’

Loeb himself made films, and as announced in a notice in Focus, he also showed his footage to the public. As a member of the HAFV, Loeb spoke at the meeting of 26 September 1932 on the topic of ‘Het wezen der kunst’ (‘The Essence of Art’), after which he showed his film De opening der Staten-Generaal (‘The Opening of the States General’).

Following the years of the German occupation, Loeb was involved in the refounding of the Masonic Lodge and initiated the setting up of a ‘masonic centre’. Two years later, in 1948, Loeb presented a lecture to two masonic lodges in The Hague, a so-called ‘bouwstuk’ (‘building block’), on the concept of beauty. The audience’s response was so positive that the decision was made to have the piece printed, in order to disseminate his ideas among a wider circle. Loeb’s lecture addressed topics such as masonic aesthetics, beauty, style, the art of living, and masonic symbols. His goal was to awaken a greater desire for beauty among his fellow brothers. Forty years prior, Loeb was already giving lectures on a regular basis to members of various associations, covering a wide array of topics that interested him. One of his talks back in 1908, presented to the members of the NCvFK, bore the title ‘Over het wezen der Foto-kunst’ (‘On the Essence of Photographic Art’). In 1910, Loeb spoke before the Hilversumsche Fotografische Club (‘Hilversum Photographic Club’) about the problem of motion in art and in photography. One year later, he covered a more traditional theme in his lecture ‘Over Portret Compositie’ (‘On Portrait Composition’). In 1913, the development of art photography was addressed in a series of art productions from Photograms of the Year.

At the present time, Loeb’s photos have been ascertained only in the collection of the Leiden University Print Room. One of these is a photo taken in 1935, found in an album that was given as a gift to Auguste Grégoire on the occasion of the twelve-and-a-half-year anniversary of his chairmanship at the HAFV. In 2001, five of Loeb’s art photos came into the possession of the Leiden Print Room, donated by the photographer Eva Loeb, a family relative. One of these photos is a direct carbon print, a process that was popular among pictorialists because of the painterly effect and its capacity to print in various pigment colours. In this case, Loeb photographed a row of houses, beautifully reflected on the water of the canal in the foreground. The main theme of the photo is the reflection itself, with the shifting distortion of the windows creating an abstract-like pattern. The print is reddish-brown, matte, and velvety. Four of the six photos are gelatin silver prints. Three photos include one or more boats as their subjects, with reflections on the water again playing an important role. The only example among the five donated photos that does not feature Loeb’s much-loved reflection is Winter from 1908. This daylight gelatin silver print with a purplish-brown gloss depicts boats on a frozen canal alongside an embankment covered with snow. This pictorialist cityscape is a subject that—just as with the aforementioned water reflections—was frequently photographed in the preceding decade by George H. Breitner en Willem Witsen. Such themes were also favourites among painters. The photo of 1935 found in the Grégoire album depicts a street scene with a small child seen from the rear, with the sun on the cobblestones forming a strong contrast to the house facades shrouded in shadow. None of these photos were reproduced in the magazines that regularly published Loeb’s work. Judging from the photos that do appear in these publications, however, one clearly observes a very deliberate adherence to his own personal principles, as put forth to his readers and followers. Nor did Loeb shy away from going to the extreme, such as for instance in the cropping of his photos, if this indeed improved the composition. This is evident in the photo Adagio, which he used as an example for one of his articles on composition in De Camera. The extreme proportions of the unusually narrow, vertical format emphasise the wispy line of the trees along the water, thus creating the much-desired curve in the composition. Regarding this photo, which was on display at a 1912 exhibition of the NCvFK held at the A.P. Little Gallery in London, Antony Guest remarked in The Amateur Photographer & Photographic News: ‘[…] and ‘Adagio’ by E. A. Loeb, has a melancholy poetry in its mysterious half-light, and an individual expressiveness that very agreeably takes effect in graceful lines of bank and trees that give a musical quality to the work.’ Another photo with the same highly elongated format is a street scene of Amsterdam published in the Deutscher Camera Almanach (‘German Camera Almanac’) of 1912/13. Here too, the water guides the observer’s view into the distance, where a church tower can be discerned. The narrow format and the reflection of the buildings in the water parallel the tall canal houses and both sides of the canal.

Genre representations in the style of A.S. Weinberg, H. van Winkoop, or G. Middendorp have never been traced in Loeb’s work. He did take interior shots using artificial light, often of his wife and other family members. The photo of Esther Loeb reading under the light of a lamp, which appeared in the very first issue of Focus, was well received in its day. This is affirmed by the fact that Loeb was awarded first prize for an enlargement of the same image in a competition for photos shot with artificial light hosted by the NAFV. Even many years later, his interior shots were still being acknowledged as pioneering work, as can be observed in a notice published in Focus, marking his death in 1957.

In relative terms, Loeb photographed a great number of landscapes, thus making him the exception in Dutch Pictorialism. While he is known to have usually emphasised the vastness of the sea by selecting a horizontal format, for the photo Aan het strand (‘At the Beach’, 1909), he used a vertical format with the proportions 1:2. The subject of this photo is—quite exceptionally—not the sea, but rather a basket left behind on the beach. The reflection of the basket on the wet sand on the coastline is typical of Loeb’s photos. It also serves as an important visual element in the photos Schelpenvisscher (‘Shell-Fisher’) and In de haven (‘In the Harbour’, 1907). Both photos, which were published in Lux, respectively, in 1908 and 1909, display a texture reminiscent of a charcoal drawing. A darkish water surface in the foreground reflects the shell-fisher as well as his horse-and-wagon, which stand on the dividing line with the much lighter background. The scene radiates the atmosphere of Hague School paintings. For the photo In de haven, the reflection in the foreground of the centrally positioned sailboat again appears to be the photo’s actual subject. The fact that the boat’s mast is cut off by the frame strengthens this notion.

The loneliness expressed in the photo Aan het strand also appears to be the theme of the photo Space (or Zuiderzee, as its title is stated in De Camera of 1 July 1912). Due to an extremely low horizon, an immense cloud-filled sky predominates over a small, unassuming sailboat. Especially the group of clouds creates the impression of a watercolour painting. With this photo, Guest continued his narrative: ‘This exhibitor has also imparted a sentiment to “On the Zuider Zee” (reproduced in last week’s “A.P.”) an atmospheric rendering, with a fine sky-effect of rolling clouds, and a little fishing boat effectively placed in a cold immensity, suggesting both the puniness and victory of human effort against nature.’ The same photo was also positively received in the Netherlands. An anonymous reviewer wrote in De Camera of 1 December 1912: ‘Ernst Loeb is said to have had a period of non-activity. Had, fortunately, because in his Ruïne van Brederode [‘Ruin of Brederode’] and Dierstudie [‘Animal Study’], we see a new beginning. A truly beautiful work is Ruimte [‘Space’], misunderstood by many, but precisely more valued by others.’

Judging by their critique, Loeb’s colleagues in the Netherlands were less impressed by the photo Winter. It was found to be too grey and dark, giving rise to comments such as: ‘This is not how we know Loeb’, or ‘Mr. Loeb has much more beautiful work at home.’ By contrast, with his still life Craquelé (‘Craquelure’), Loeb managed to strike precisely the right tone with the art critic H. de Boer. In De Camera of 1 November 1913, Boer wrote about Loeb’s work shown at the Jaarlijksche Nationale Tentoonstelling van Fotowerken (‘Annual National Exhibition of Photographic Works’) in Amsterdam: ‘(…) the subtle spiritual refinement of a small pot with craquelure and an honesty plant [‘judaspenningen’] by E.A. Loeb (…)’ and ‘Loeb’s “In het bosch” [‘In the Woods’] is kept to a poetic tone of mood, but his “Craquelé” is a gem of refined taste and technique.’

Loeb had previously relied on reproductions of his own still lifes to illustrate an article in De Camera. In the text accompanying the photos, however, he described the still life as being little more than a good alternative to life models, who were always more easily agitated than the photographer, and as a result, placed their own demands on a photo. Instead of a living model, Loeb therefore preferred to use a bust, which he could light and photograph from various angles. One of the other two photos in the same article bore the title Poëzie en proza (‘Poetry and Prose’), depicting a still life with a contemporary dinner service reflected in the glass surface on which it rested. For Japonneries, Loeb photographed a small Asian pot and a vase on a stand, again with an honesty plant. These are not Loeb’s strongest photos. Judging from the article, still lifes were likely to have been more of a training tool than a goal in itself, with poetry in his work therefore most vividly expressed in his landscapes. In photos such as Space/Zuiderzee, Aan het strand, and Zuid West Regennest (‘South West Rain Nest’), Loeb allows the existing vastness of the landscape to represent desolation and loneliness. In his dune and snow landscapes—containing no trace of any human presence—the landscape itself is not the subject, but rather the atmosphere and the character of the landscape. Because of the serenity encountered in these photos, they appear to be the most sublime representation of silence.

Ernst Loeb’s importance for Dutch pictorial photography is in no way diminished by the fact that only a few of his photos have survived. Based on his experience and skill, his articles appearing in Lux, De Camera, and Focus are certain to have inspired a great many amateurs to achieve better work. As co-founder of the NCvFK, in addition to his efforts in establishing a museum for photography, Loeb was a key figure in the area of Dutch art photography. He shared his knowledge and talent via lectures and garnered tremendous success with his book Kunstfotografie voor den amateur, which enjoyed a wide readership. The admiration of colleagues and that of later generations with respect to Ernst Loeb’s role in photography is evident in the fact that the editorial department at Focus saw his seventieth birthday and his death as occasions to publish an article praising him both for his photography and his written oeuvre.

Documentation