Helena van der Kraan dies on her 80th birthday

Tuesday 16 June 2020, 21:12 by Michelle Peeters | 4,784 views | 1 comment

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Artist-photographer Helena van der Kraan (1940-2020) died on Sunday 14 June, on the morning of her eightieth birthday and in the presence of her beloved Axel, after a short illness at Franciscus Gasthuis in Rotterdam as a result of cancer. The Netherlands has lost a great figure in photography.

Curator Wim van Sinderen, who worked with the artist for more than thirty years, says: Helena van der Kraan is one of the greatest photographers the Netherlands has known since the 1970s. Her oeuvre spans fifty years and is characterised by a restrained form of visual poetry. Her understated, subtle style of capturing images is highly valued among photographers.

Helena van der Kraan with Wim van Sinderen (left) in 2005.
Photo: Marie Jeanne de Rooij
She remained virtually unknown to the general public until her recently published 'bear book' Portretten / Portraits and the accompanying exhibition Beer & Teddy, an intriguing contemporary project about old teddy bears, which she captured in the same way she portrayed people.

Born in Prague

Helena van der Kraan was born in Prague in 1940 as Helena Jirina Maazel. Shortly after the failed uprising in 1968 in former Czechoslovakia, she moved to the Netherlands, where she was accepted at Ateliers '63, now de Ateliers, the renowned postgraduate art institute. Originally trained as a graphic artist and painter, she met the sculptor and graphic artist Axel van der Kraan (1949) there.

In the 1970s to 1990s, they worked together on various projects, such as installations and sculptures. In 1970, she bought her first camera and began taking photographs, initially to document their joint projects. But photography soon became her primary medium.

In 1978, the Kunstmuseum organised a major exhibition of the artist couple. Since then, there has always been a warm relationship between the Van der Kraan couple and the museum. In 1986, Helena had her first solo exhibition at the same museum. In 1989, Helena and Axel van der Kraan were awarded the Hendrik Chabot Prize as a duo.

In 2005, Fotomuseum Den Haag organised a major retrospective of Helena's photographic work to mark her 65th birthday. Helena's work is held in the collections of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Kunstmuseum Den Haag, among others.

A preference for formal aspects such as shapes, patterns and lines

For fifty years, Helena van der Kraan mainly photographed friends, acquaintances and everyday situations she encountered in her surroundings. She always worked from a personal relationship with her subjects. Her photographic style is characterised by subtlety and stillness, and the use of even, natural light.

Her analogue photographs, mostly expertly printed by her in soft and greyish black and white, possess an extraordinary directness and austerity in terms of composition and framing. Despite her strong social commitment, Helena as an artist had a strong preference for the formal aspects of photography, such as shapes, patterns and lines.

This clearly revealed her graphic background. With Helena van der Kraan, the Netherlands has lost a gifted artist.

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