Biography

Discussion

As a photographer, Linck refers to himself as a defender of history. As such, he characterises himself as a documentary photographer. While he prefers to photograph people, his oeuvre reveals a broader range of themes, which also includes landscapes and still lifes. Linck takes great pleasure in the technical side of his profession, both in terms of camera technique and darkroom work. Working within the limitations imposed by traditional artisanal photography, he seeks to find optimal ways in devising convincing images. When taking a photo, Linck derives pleasure from experimenting with proportions of light, time, and space. Translating these elements into the tonal values of the paper typically entails a struggle in the darkroom. Upon obtaining a couple of satisfying results, he preferably shifts his attention to other matters. Having once cherished the dream of becoming an artist, today Linck views his work primarily as craftsmanship.

Although extremely young during the years of the German occupation, Frederick Linck remembers the darkness, the sound of the V1 rockets, and making his way to the soup kitchens. The strain of those years was tangible and left a major impression—especially the fact his mother witnessed her own husband being pushed down the stairs by the ‘Arbeitseinsatz’ (‘forced labour deployment’) during a raid. Linck’s father was taken away. Just prior to reaching the German border, however, he jumped train, fled back to Naarden, and subsequently went into hiding in the province of North Holland. Frederick’s mother used his toy wagon to distribute the illegal newspaper Vrij Nederland (‘Free Netherlands’). The end of the war marked the beginning of a carefree period for Linck. Through his Frisian grandfather on his mother’s side of the family, a ship carpenter, he learned to sail and fish for eel. It was during this time that Linck developed an appreciation for the beauty of nature on the countryside: the atmosphere, the light, and the space. He was also an active member of the Jeugd Natuurwacht (‘Young Nature Rangers’).

During his youth, Frederick often flew to different places. Today, travelling continues to play an important role in his life. After his rehabilitation from paratyphoid in his final year of primary school, Linck’s performance in secondary school was quite poor. He was truant on a regular basis and kicked out of various schools. At the age of sixteen, he was placed in a juvenile detention centre for his aggressive and inappropriate behaviour and was subsequently sent on to a number of correction houses. Having served out his sentence, he spent time working as a sailor in the coastal shipping industry and later took on all kinds of jobs, as well working in various nightclubs. It was at the cafés in The Hague, such as the ‘Jazz Club’ on the Achterom and ‘De Sport’ on the Kazernestraat, that Linck began to meet all kinds of artists. His desire for an artistic profession was sparked by these contacts. To determine whether this was indeed where his future really lay, in 1959 he briefly attended the KABK (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, ‘Royal Academy of Art’) in The Hague without actually being officially enrolled. A trip hitchhiking to Paris reinforced his idea of becoming an artist even more. Through a girlfriend there, Linck became acquainted with Existentialism, an ideology with which he felt completely at home. Linck’s parents saw no future in an artistic career: in their view, attending maritime school or becoming a doctor was a much more sensible thing for him to do. His mother profoundly disliked artists, whom she associated with love affairs, alcohol, and prostitution. For Linck, this kind of opposition made the world of art seem just that much more attractive.

After serving in the military, Linck attended the Vrije Academie (‘Free Academy’) in The Hague, which was then located on the Hoefkade, where he hoped to further develop his drawing and painting skills by taking lessons with Nol Kroes. It was here that he first obtained a more serious knowledge of photography, thanks to Ed van Wijk. While drawing from life models, Van Wijk had him take a look through his Rolleiflex, after which Linck enthusiastically decided to continue his studies in the direction of photography. As well encouraging in this endeavour was his teacher Victor Meeussen. During his days at the academy, Linck also spent a half-year working for Max Koot. He initially helped out with retouching, but was later employed as the number two lab technician.

In the 1960s, Linck was able to make a decent living from his photo commissions, and when necessary, he supplemented this with all kinds of temporary work. Linck’s wife, Theodora Tsaoussis, who worked for various government ministries as a translator and as a state specialist with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, earned the biggest share of the couple’s income for quite some time. In 1968, Linck moved into the former ‘milk salon’ of the Sierkan Milk Factory at Amsterdamse Veerkade 9 in The Hague, with the assistance of the municipal department of ‘Art Affairs’. To this day, he resides at this address together with his current wife, Conny Kuipéri. It is also the location of his studio.

In the early 1970s, Linck became an assistant to the photographer Hans Götze on the Frederikstraat in The Hague. With a subsidy for study material from the province of South Holland, he was able to continue his study at the Vrije Academie. By this time, the academy was called ‘Psychopolis’ and had moved to the Gheinstraat in The Hague. In 1974, Linck was offered a teaching position at the School voor Fotografie en Fototechniek (‘School of Photography and Photographic Technique’), also known as the MTS voor fotografie en fotonica (Middelbare Technische School, ‘Intermediate Technical School of Photography and Photonics’), in The Hague. This took place through the intermediation of Theo Meijer, a photojournalist and board member of this institution. From that point on, Linck’s former mentor Ed van Wijk became a fellow colleague. Together with Lies Wiegman, Linck devised a photography programme for second-year students, with all kinds of lectures, jury positions, workshops, and other teaching commissions in the Netherlands and abroad following as a result. This also included the study programmes that Linck set up for the ”Leidse Onderwijs Instellingen’ (‘Leiden Educational Institutions’) via the filmmaker Piet van der Ham. In 1983, Linck received a permanent contract from the School voor Fotografie en Fototechniek in The Hague. After the merging of the School voor Fotografie en Fototechniek with the KABK (Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten, ‘Royal Academy of Visual Arts’) and The Hague Conservatory, Linck started teaching at the newly formed ‘Hogeschool van Beeldende Kunsten, Muziek en Dans’ (‘College of Visual Art, Dance and Music’) in the departments of Fashion/Textile, Photographic Design, and Graphic Design. To this day, Linck still sees the transition to the Hogeschool as the demise of a unique professional educational programme in photography, where substantial attention was devoted to technique.

As the years progressed, Linck grew to enjoy teaching, even though these positions were chiefly necessary due to difficulties associated with making a decent living from his autonomous work alone. The boy who started out with trouble in school became a man who teaches with great love, is engrossed in the history of photography and art, and gives tours at De Gevangenpoort (‘Prison Gate’) Museum, a former prison for convicts. Linck speaks with his photography students to protect them from ‘visual pitfalls’. At the same time, he has them build practical experience in the field, based on a wide variety of examples. During his classes, Linck regularly takes his own portrait photos of students, to serve as models. Teaching his students the different techniques plays an important role in his classes, because it is precisely a mastery of this aspect that gives the student a feeling of freedom. In doing so, an array of possibilities comes within one’s reach. In turn, the students stimulate Linck with their new ideas, bringing him positive energy at times when he feels he has seen and done just about everything.

Frederick Linck has a large photo archive, comprising black-and-white negatives, as well as prints and slides in black and white and colour. The themes vary from portraits, nudes, street scenes and interiors, to landscape, still lifes, and abstract photography. Linck’s prints are always accompanied by extensive documentation, including the day the shot and the print were made, as well as the design and technique. He also records the date and the method of printing, as well when making new prints of previous shots. The composition and compilation of his oeuvre are therefore easily ascertainable.

For years, Linck has been photographing the unique people encountered in his own neighbourhood, while at their daily routines. His early role models in this regard were Sanne Sannes and Robert Frank. With Sannes, Linck recognised the emotion of the moment; in Frank’s photography, it was the melancholy that appealed to him most. Through photography, Linck establishes contact with people from all levels of society with ease. It was a big step, making the transition from his ‘middle class’ upbringing and entering another world. One case in point is an extensive series dating from the 1970s, featuring portraits of vendors who work at the market on the Herman Costerstraat in The Hague. They provide an excellent picture of a part of The Hague that has since dramatically changed. During the same period, he also produced a series of photos that depict the drug addicts living in the old centre of The Hague. When viewing Linck’s photos, people are quick to compare them with the work of Diana Arbus. While superficial similarities exist, the differences are more significant. Linck focuses on the beauty of the irregular and unusual in everyday life. Above all, he captures people’s vulnerability. Diana Arbus, by contrast, turned to individuals who were anything but ordinary and portrayed them in a heartless manner.

Linck regularly does portraits on commission, both for organisations and for private individuals. He has also photographed for publications by and about artists in The Hague, including a documentary on Piet Mondrian by the filmmaker Nico Crama. Linck as well photographed the Hague painter Nol Kroes, and the sculptors Aart van den IJssel and Shamai Haber. In addition, he did a reportage on Lotty van der Gaag, a sculptor from The Hague, at her studio in Paris. Linck has worked on publicity assignments for companies in The Hague, including the contractor Breumelhof, and Van Gelder, a company specialised in building facade lettering. Linck has also furnished photos for magazine illustrations, album covers for Polydor, book covers, catalogues, theatrical posters, and annual reports.

Through his friendship with the clown Johnny ‘Boltini’ Akkerman (a brother of Tony Boltini), Linck began taking on numerous commissions for the Dutch circus world in 1978. Since then, he has produced backstage reportages for virtually every circus in the Netherlands. Linck has also travelled with international circuses, such as Althoff and Krone. Linck especially had an eye for the impoverished, hard life hidden behind the facade of the circus show world. Yet he also shot characteristic photos of the skills these circus artists possessed, which were subsequently used in programmes and circus flyers. In 1981, Linck did the illustrations for the yearbook of Grafisch Nederland (‘Graphic Netherlands’), with the circus as its theme.

In the 1970s, Linck shot photos that leaned in the direction of abstraction. His photos for the Première triënnale internationale de la photographie (TIP 75, ‘First International Triennial of Photography’), held in 1974–’75 in Fribourg, Switzerland, are an example of this. He depicted ‘mechanical motion’ by making a sweeping movement with his camera, using shutter speeds of 1 to 1/8 second with the smallest possible lens aperture.

Linck enjoys composing and photographing as much as ever. In his studio, he experiments with all sorts of props, e.g. waste materials such as bottles, flattened cans and other rubbish. He works these into compositions. With the help of studio lighting, he tries to capture the beauty of deterioration, chiefly in black and white. The aesthetic of these still lifes brings to mind associations with the way light was treated by photographers at the NFK (Nederlandse Fotografen Kunstkring, ‘Netherlands Photographers Art Society’), e.g. Nico Zomer and Steef Zoetmulder.

Since 1991, Linck has been taking photos on a regular basis in the United States, where his daughter and her family live, as well as his sister-in-law. It was in the States that his love of landscape became revitalised. Nature, the desolation, the vastness of the landscape: all fascinate him. A contrast in the shiny metal of big American cars and the drabness of concrete or the uncultivated land that stretches out for miles is one of his themes. Another topic of interest are the large areas covered in snow: landscapes in which the individual person and his modern vehicle suddenly appear as insignificant. In the Netherlands, Linck is captivated by the differences in the cultivated landscape.

Classes in drawing and working with models were very useful for Linck’s photography. Because of it, he has an astute eye for anatomical proportions and the expression of the individuals he portrays. How to show relationships in light and dark and different colours in black and white on the flat surface: this is what design is all about in Linck’s view. In a portrait, light and space determine the mood, combined with the charisma the model exudes. Linck intentionally honours the original traditions of photography, but is likewise open to new developments. Plasticity achieved through contrasts in light and dark, the degree of sharpness, the close-up: these are precisely the photographic devices he employs to express the emotional exchange between the person in front of his lens and himself. Linck feels he has succeeded in his plan when outsiders also respond to this emotionally. Examples are the reactions of passers-by when seeing photos on display in the windows of his studio. One person was so moved by a photograph of an old Aruban woman, that from that day forward he chose to walk on the opposite side of the street. Linck subsequently received an email asking that the photo be removed.

With Frederick Linck, vision and technique are inextricably linked. His main interest is not the moment the shot is taken, but rather the entire technical process that leads to the finished photo. Linck does all of the finishing for his black-and-white photos himself—only with colour photos does he involve others to do the printing. When representing the subject, he equivocates technical knowledge with a freedom of choice. Although refraining from the outright rejection of digital photography, he derives little pleasure from working with a computer. The traditional approach of working in the darkroom gives him a greater opportunity to implement his artistic ideas and technical insight. Special effects can be achieved without having to use a computer.

Linck has always collected and relied on a variety of cameras, ranging from Agfa Clack and Hasselblad to a Linhof Technika. He regularly works with a so-called pinhole camera, featuring a single small aperture, versus a lens, and quite comparable to a camera obscura. Linck experiences this most primitive form of photography as an entirely different manner of observing: small objects are enlarged, while the perspective shifts in relation to one’s own eyes.

Linck’s very first exhibition was a one-man show at the theatre/gallery ‘De Trapkes’ in Breda, entitled Vrouwen voor de lens (‘Women in Front of the Lens’). For a while after, things remained relatively quiet until the mid-1970s. With Linck’s participation in the first Triënnale for photography in Fribourg Switzerland in 1975, however, his work started gaining greater notoriety. This led to the acquisition of a number of Linck’s photos by the municipality of The Hague. In the aftermath of his presence at the second and third triennial in Fribourg, in 1978 and 1981, Linck’s work drew the attention of the Leiden University Print Room, which made various acquisitions in 1980 and 1982. After this time, Linck exhibited only in the Netherlands and then primarily in the galleries of his own city, The Hague. In 1981, he took part—together with others, including Vincent Mentzel and Rainier Kiedrowski—in the opening exhibition of ‘Kiek’, the first photo gallery in The Hague, located on the Scheveningseweg. In 1989, Linck was represented at two major exhibitions in The Hague organised to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the invention of photography: 22 fotografen (’22 Photographers’) at ‘Grafiekwinkel Inkt’ and Ogenblikken (‘Moments’) at the Nouvelles Images Gallery. In 2002–’03, Linck’s work was also shown at the exhibition Fotografen in Nederland 1852–2002 (‘Photographers in the Netherlands 1852–2002’), held at the Fotomuseum Den Haag (‘The Hague Museum of Photography’).

Frederick Linck’s photography belongs to the documentary movement in which Dutch photographers robustly expressed themselves in the aftermath of World War II. Linck’s work falls into the tradition of human interest photography, particularly through his compassionate orientation towards people, his desire to seek out their motivations, and to capture identifiable emotions. While his approach is essentially the same no matter who he wants to photograph—be it in New York, Prague, southern Europe, or at home in The Hague—Linck’s strongest side is revealed in his contacts with people from those surroundings he knows best. Here he has an opportunity to win a person’s trust, through regular meetings, less superficial in nature. These people know Linck to be a person who treats them with respect, consequently enabling him to photograph them in all of their vulnerability. His qualified expertise, his drive to establishing contacts, and his enthusiasm for both the technical and the design aspects of photography, are the primary characteristics that make Linck so successful in his work and in his teaching. Frederick Linck’s aim is to leave behind a modest but moving oeuvre that can be useful for beginning photographers in finding their own personal style, so they too in turn can learn from their predecessors, just as Linck himself has done.

Documentation