Sanne Sannes the Vintage Works Hup Gallery Photography

Sanne Sannes Hup gallery, opens Tuesday 23 September until 21 November

Rare vintage works by Dutch photographer Sanne Sannes, who perished in a car accident in 1967. Renowned in the early '60s for using photography as a means to create autonomous art, he was known as the 'photographer of tomorrow'.

After almost four decades of obscurity, a unique collection from the oeuvre of the Dutch photographer Sanne Sannes (1937-1967) comes to light again. That this collection of rare vintage work from the Sannes Estate (curator Rob Sannes) shall again be available for an international market is an opportunity for Dutch photography.

About the photographer:Sannes, during his brief photographic career in the sixties, became renown for his taste for the erotic, his fascination with women and approach to seduction. His timeless imagery recalls the atmosphere of the sixties, which acted as an impulse both for his models and for his own super talent in photography.

After his untimely death at the age of 30 in a car accident, with only an eight year photographic career of innovating art, Sannes oeuvre is still on par with internationally acclaimed Dutch photographers such as Gerard Fieret and Ed van der Elsken, who in the sixties defined Dutch black-and-white photography. That Sannes earned his merit in the world of creative photography with his keen and intensely poetic eye regarding women, shall be obvious to contemporary viewers. Sannes explores aspects of sexual passion. Jim Hughes, editor of 'Camera 35', wrote: "Sannes, a controversial Dutch photographer, did not make easy photographs. Certainly, he did not make pretty photographs. I'm not even sure he made photographs. He made explorations of people, of their outsides and their insides, and sent back picture postcards of their psyches."

Sannes work is better known through his publications, one of his best known books being 'Sex a Gogo'. More provocative than most books of nudes in its day, it remains a fantastic period piece even today. It was his second book, published posthumously in 1969. His first book, 'Oog om Oog'(Eye for Eye) a notable work in the Dutch beeldroman (photonovel) tradition, had been published a few years earlier. 'Sex a Gogo' was much more light hearted, a Pop-Art sexual manual, complete with psychedelic collages and cartoon speech balloons. It was heavily influenced by the many underground¹ magazines that were a feature of the 1960s culture/scene. Parr & Badger wrote in The Photobook, A History, Vol. I: "The book's montages were devised by its designer Walter Steevensz, who took over the project when Sannes died, and it is his vision as much as the photographer's that is evidenced in this typically 1960's comedy of sexual mores. Yet however comical, Sex a Gogo never allows us to forget about its erotic intentions.

Sannes described his approach like this: "There are many men who'll never see a woman in ecstasy. They change from one thing to something else completely different. Human emotions are my subject matter. I photograph people. They're what interest me, obsess me. I want to know what pushes them to do what they do. I don't look for them in the street; I don't do random photography. I direct them and record the moment they open up and become naked. I chose the most emotionally charged moments, the point of no return. I'm fanatically zealous!

"Photographer Anna Beeke posed for Sannes and describes him as a "voyeur and provocateur, adding that he was like a boy who'd got old too soon and was never free of the obsessions that preoccupied him"

"Note: FOAM_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam will organise an exhibition about and with the work of Sanne Sannes in 2009.

PhotoQ’s Multimedia: Wolffensperger over Sannes (4 min 14 sec) & see also the (Dutch) Books of Nudes by Alessandro Bertolotti ... & the movie by Sanne Sannes Dirty Girl ...

Lees verder Achter een beregende ruit; De erotische foto's van Sanne Sannes ... & verder ...