Eddy Posthuma de Boer

Bikes - Haarlemmerplein, Amsterdam, 1957 Archival pigment print

29 x 46 cm

Edition of 5

For more than 50 years, photographer Eddy Posthuma de Boer has traveled the world, visiting over 80 countries to capture human life. His photographs have been published in newspapers and magazines such as Het Parool, De Volkskrant, Time-Life, Avenue and Holland Herald, alongside numerous photo books compiled by himself. As a contemporary of Ed van der Elsken and Johan van der Keuken, he can be seen as one of the most important living representatives of humanist photography in the Netherlands. In the gallery, a selection of vintage prints will be shown, most of them never exhibited to the public before, combined with a recent series of landscapes.

Charcarteristic in the work of Posthuma de Boer is a frontal composition, often portraying his subjects in full length. The background functions as a context in which the subject can be identified, especially when the photo was taken in a foreign country. He uses natural light very cleverly, generally the only kind that is available at the time of him taking the photo. With the three components, composition, background and natural light, Posthuma de Boer is able to confront the people very directly with the viewer, like his photograph of dozens of cyclists, waiting to cross the street.