The Making of a Photobook: Sanne Sannes’ Maquette for Diary of an Erotomaniac Photography

The Making of a Photobook:

Sanne Sannes’ Maquette for Diary of an Erotomaniac

Tamara Berghmans

Rijksmuseum Studies in Photography 6

Volume 6 of the Rijksmuseum Studies in Photography focuses on the maquette for Dagboek van een erotomaan by Sanne Sannes. Tamara Berghmans not only reconstructs the way Sannes shaped it over the years but also examines Sannes’ imagery and the international setting for nude photography in the Sixties. Although Sannes was not the only one to adopt female eroticism as his main theme, he proved to be a highly original photographer.

Sannes had worked on the maquette from approximately 1964 until his death in 1967, and he was in the throes of negotiating an American edition for international distribution. This might well have led to his breakthrough outside the Netherlands.

To say that Sannes was interested in women would be an understatement: he was obsessed by them and they are almost exclusively the subject of his photographs. Sannes was careful not to stray into pornography, a concern shared by his American agent who foresaw problems with US censorship if the book was too explicit. Sannes’ abrupt death put an end to these considerations (and to their discussion of other matters concerning the layout and the character of the book).

Manfred & Hanna Heiting Fund / Rijksmuseum

56 pages 40 full colour illustrations € 22,95

Sanne Sannes is mentioned in authoritative international publications on photobooks : Foto in omslag. Het Nederlandse documentaire fotoboek na 1945 / Photography between Covers. The Dutch Documentary Photobook after 1945 (Amsterdam 1989) by Mattie Boom; The Book of 101 Books (New York 2001) by Andrew Roth; the Photobook : A History. Volume I (London 2004) by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger; and the retrospective work on nude photography Livre de Nus (Paris 2007) by Alessandro Bertolotti. Sannes is discussed in various serveys of Dutch photography such as Fotografie in Nederland 1940 - 1975 (The Hague 1978); Roots + Turns. 20th Century Photography in The Netherlands (The Hague 1988); Fotografen in Nederland: een anthologie 1852 - 2002 (Ghent / The Hague 2002); and the recently published reference work Dutch Eyes. A Critical History of the Photography in The Netherlands (Zwolle 2007).Sannes also appears on the web. For instance, the blog Bint Photobooks devotes attention to him and posts its own films on his photobooks on YouTube. The main source that articles and publications draw on is art historian Cecile van der Harten's master's thesis Sanne Sannes - fotograaf (1988). This initial study consists of an extensive inventory of the unordered material in Sannes' archive. Van der Harten compiled a meticulous bibliography and an overview of his exhibitions and offered a good interpretation of the themes and topics in the photographer's oeuvre.

See for Dutch Books of Nudes Alessandro Bertolotti Sanne Sannes Anthon Beeke Ed van der Elsken Ginger Gordon Diana Blok Graphic Design Typography Photography ...

See also Het uur van de wolf: De vrouwen van Sanne Sannes a documentary ... After seeing a book of photos, Frodo Terpstra became captivated by the life and work of photographer Sanne Sannes, who died in a car accident in 1967 at the age of 30. Who was this man who took experimental, grainy erotic pictures of women? Sannes's photos suggest a degree of intimacy between the models and their photographer. Was he a playboy, some kind of James Dean of photography? To find answers to these and other questions, Terpstra visits relatives, old friends, models and possible loves from Sannes's past. Sannes's brother Rob owns his complete photo archive, but he isn't very communicative about Sannes. He can't seem to answer the question of who his brother actually was. Sannes's college friend Martin didn't know him very well, either. He was more closed than a cocoon." In the voice-over, Terpstra wonders if the pictures tell us something about his inner life, and if the myth of the sex maniac is really appropriate. In between the interviews, we see black-and-white images of Sannes's work and Terpstra divulges his findings and philosophies about who Sannes was and what the key to his work might be. The film is a result of the IDFA scenario workshop, which Terpstra won in 2004. En zie ook Nederlands Fotomuseum verwerft Sanne Sannes ...

Eye pathologies Photojournalism by Juul Hondius Photography

Eye pathologies by HIPPOLYTE BAYARD...

Juul Hondius, UN/Defender, 2000

Juul Hondius, Canal, 2000

Dutch photography: "a critical iconography of the present" is an expression used by Juul Hondius to describe his photographs, set-up scenes that deal with some of the most recurrent subjects of contemporary photojournalism, like refugees and international peace corps in former Yugoslavia and other international scenarios. These images look like thousands of news photos we've seen over and over, but have a neatness, richness of details and stillness that makes us 'stay' on the image, rather than being hit by the content and move fast on to the next one. Icons of icons, they mock the media language by restaging its subject matter, a "pathological" illustration of the numbness of our gaze on the world.

Juul Hondius, Busfront #1, 2006

Eye pathologies Photojournalism by Juul Hondius Photography

Eye pathologies by HIPPOLYTE BAYARD...

Juul Hondius, UN/Defender, 2000

Juul Hondius, Canal, 2000

Dutch photography: "a critical iconography of the present" is an expression used by Juul Hondius to describe his photographs, set-up scenes that deal with some of the most recurrent subjects of contemporary photojournalism, like refugees and international peace corps in former Yugoslavia and other international scenarios. These images look like thousands of news photos we've seen over and over, but have a neatness, richness of details and stillness that makes us 'stay' on the image, rather than being hit by the content and move fast on to the next one. Icons of icons, they mock the media language by restaging its subject matter, a "pathological" illustration of the numbness of our gaze on the world.

Juul Hondius, Busfront #1, 2006

Dummy Photobook 'Dagboek van een erotomaan' [Diary of a Erotomaniac] Sanne Sannes Photography

MAIN INFORMATION

Category of object	20th century Dutch photographs
Period/Style	1950-today
Medium & Support	photograph
Dimension	height: 35.4 cm = 13 7/8 in. width: 27.2 cm = 10 3/4 in. depth: 5.2 cm = 2 in.
Museum	Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

PROVENANCE

The dummy and all but four photographs were acquired from the estate, four loose prints were bought from HUP Gallery, Amsterdam
2007, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. nrs. RP-F-2007-187 t/m 194

LITERATURE

Cécile van der Harten (ed.), Flip Bool (ed.) and Gerard van Westerloo (ed.), Cécile van der Harten and Gerard van Westerloo, Sanne Sannes, 1937-1967, Fragment, Amsterdam, 1993
Bulletin van de Vereniging Rembrandt, vol. 18, n° 1, 2008, M. Boom, H. Rooseboom, Dummy voor ‘Dagboek van een erotomaan’, p. 23-27

Sanne Sannes - Darkness & Light 30 October – 9 December 2009

Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam presents Darkness & Light, a special retrospective of the photographic oeuvre by Sanne Sannes (1937-1967). In the relatively short period of time that Sannes worked as a photographer, he managed to build up a unique portfolio. His obsession with the erotic force of the female was overpowering. Women formed his favourite subject and were an endless source of inspiration to him. Sannes photographed women over and over again in ecstatic sessions, during which he portrayed them often in the nude and at their most intimate. This intimacy is emphasized by the out-of-focus and underexposed pictures, because Sannes worked with existing light and photographed with a hand-held camera.

With his grainy erotic portraits, his relentless urge to experiment, and his non-conformist attitude Sannes came to be seen as the most promising photographer in The Netherlands during the Sixties. He worked on exhibitions both in the Netherlands and abroad. Due to his untimely death, he never truly achieved an international breakthrough - he died in a car accident at the age of thirty.

Even though his career was not a long one, the oeuvre Sannes built up was of the highest quality. The exhibition at Foam shows a cross-section of this work and contains unique vintage prints, large format prints especially made by Sannes for exhibitions, projections and parts of the mock-up of Sannes’ never-published photo book Dagboek van een erotomaan [Diary of a Erotomaniac]. See for a review ...

See also Dirty Girl Sanne Sannes, VPRO, 1967 (18 min.) Foto-film over de fantasieën van een keurig getrouwde vrouw. Ze droomt van een bestaan waarin ze naaktmodel, prostituée en uiteindelijk moordenares van haar sullige echtgenoot is. Fotograaf en filmer Sanne Sannes stond op het punt om internationaal door te breken toen hij in 1967 onverwacht overleed.

Dummy Photobook 'Dagboek van een erotomaan' [Diary of a Erotomaniac] Sanne Sannes Photography

MAIN INFORMATION

Category of object	20th century Dutch photographs
Period/Style	1950-today
Medium & Support	photograph
Dimension	height: 35.4 cm = 13 7/8 in. width: 27.2 cm = 10 3/4 in. depth: 5.2 cm = 2 in.
Museum	Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

PROVENANCE

The dummy and all but four photographs were acquired from the estate, four loose prints were bought from HUP Gallery, Amsterdam
2007, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. nrs. RP-F-2007-187 t/m 194

LITERATURE

Cécile van der Harten (ed.), Flip Bool (ed.) and Gerard van Westerloo (ed.), Cécile van der Harten and Gerard van Westerloo, Sanne Sannes, 1937-1967, Fragment, Amsterdam, 1993
Bulletin van de Vereniging Rembrandt, vol. 18, n° 1, 2008, M. Boom, H. Rooseboom, Dummy voor ‘Dagboek van een erotomaan’, p. 23-27

Sanne Sannes - Darkness & Light 30 October – 9 December 2009

Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam presents Darkness & Light, a special retrospective of the photographic oeuvre by Sanne Sannes (1937-1967). In the relatively short period of time that Sannes worked as a photographer, he managed to build up a unique portfolio. His obsession with the erotic force of the female was overpowering. Women formed his favourite subject and were an endless source of inspiration to him. Sannes photographed women over and over again in ecstatic sessions, during which he portrayed them often in the nude and at their most intimate. This intimacy is emphasized by the out-of-focus and underexposed pictures, because Sannes worked with existing light and photographed with a hand-held camera.

With his grainy erotic portraits, his relentless urge to experiment, and his non-conformist attitude Sannes came to be seen as the most promising photographer in The Netherlands during the Sixties. He worked on exhibitions both in the Netherlands and abroad. Due to his untimely death, he never truly achieved an international breakthrough - he died in a car accident at the age of thirty.

Even though his career was not a long one, the oeuvre Sannes built up was of the highest quality. The exhibition at Foam shows a cross-section of this work and contains unique vintage prints, large format prints especially made by Sannes for exhibitions, projections and parts of the mock-up of Sannes’ never-published photo book Dagboek van een erotomaan [Diary of a Erotomaniac]. See for a review ...

See also Dirty Girl Sanne Sannes, VPRO, 1967 (18 min.) Foto-film over de fantasieën van een keurig getrouwde vrouw. Ze droomt van een bestaan waarin ze naaktmodel, prostituée en uiteindelijk moordenares van haar sullige echtgenoot is. Fotograaf en filmer Sanne Sannes stond op het punt om internationaal door te breken toen hij in 1967 onverwacht overleed.

Toto město je ve společné péči obyvatel This Town is Under the Control of its Citizens Miroslav Peterka Photography

Toto město je ve společné péči obyvatel This Town is Under the Control of its Citizens . Photographs by Miroslav Peterka. Texts edited by Bohumil Hrabal. Ceskoslovensky Spisovatel, Prague, 1967. 100 pp. Small quarto. First edition. Clothbound in graphically illustrated dust jacket. Gravure reproductions. Silk ribbon bookmark.

As Parr and Badger describe, Peterka's book provides its viewer with an "urban meditation that uses photographic fragments, glimpses of the urban streetscape, to make a wider point about our political situation in the late twentieth century...The book's title may or may not be intentionally ironic. The dark, fragmented nature of the pictures indicate that it is, suggesting an anti-Communist critique made just prior to the 'Prague Spring...Peterka details a familiar iconography of photographic melancholia--abstracted signs, mysterious doorways, peeling and crumbling walls, miserable looking people on the streets, a broken mask lying by a lamp-post. With these apparent cliches, he creates an atmosphere of gloom and uncertainty, mirroring the alienated lives of modern man."

Impressive documentary photographs of remnants of the Cold War Martin Roemers Photography

Lees verder ... & zie verder ...

Relics of the Cold War Exhibition in Berlin by dpr-bcn

Impressive documentary photographs of remnants of the Cold War

The Cold War is over, yet its traces are still visible. For forty long years, the Iron Curtaindivided Europe into East and West; atomic-bomb shelters were built, weapons stockpiled, emergency drills carried out. Dutch documentary photographer Martin Roemers (*1962) decided to track down the remains of this period. For over ten years he repeatedly traveled through formerly hostile countries on both sides of the line: through eastern and western Germany, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Ukraine, and other former East Bloc nations. He descended into underground tunnels; photographed abandoned control centers, old barracks, wrecked tanks, and ruined statues. In his images the era of enmity, the politics of deterrence, and the arms race appear ongoing and vivid, serving as a reminder for a future of peace.

Martin Roemers. Relics of the Cold War

Willy-Brandt-Haus, Berlin November 11, 2009 – January 15, 2010

Opening November 10, 2009 at 7:30 pm

From the text Same defenses, same fears by Martin Roemers:

Summer 1983. I’m on holiday with a friend in Germany. We’re walking through a wood in an easterly direction. It must be there. Through the trees we see something grayish. We can’t go any further. There’s a concrete wall in front of us. There’s nothing else to see. Except for the singing birds it is quiet. We walk along the wall until we reach a watchtower. A soldier is sitting inside and he looks at us. I take a picture of the lonely man in the tower. He takes a picture of us.

Fall 1989. The wall has fallen. I’m a photography student at the art academy. I drive through East Germany in my old car. On the way I pass countless Russian barracks. It looks like a completely different world from the outside. I wonder what they look like inside. I walk to the front gate and ask for permission to take a few pictures. “Njet,” they say.

Spring 2009. I’ve taken the last picture for this project in Moscow. The question I asked myself during this series was: “What are the consequences of this war that was never waged on the landscape?” I’ve looked for these places for eleven years between all my other work. Initially I focussed on the Soviet legacy in the old GDR, but gradually the project became bigger. Although the Cold War affected more continents, I’ve limited myself to East and West Europe. I’ve been surprised by the enormous quantities of shelters, bunkers, airfields, shooting ranges, barracks, missile bases, border barricades, and radar stations. They look identical on both sides of the Iron Curtain: the same defense mechanisms built out of the same fears.

All images taken from the book:

Martin Roemers
Relics of the Cold War
Edited by Nadine Barth, texts by Nadine Barth, H.J.A. Hofland, Martin Roemers

Published by Hatje Cantz

See also Bart Sorgedrager - Cold War ...