1994 Streetstyle; Victoria and Albert Museum, London,
England
1995 20 Modern British Photographs; Victoria and Albert
Museum, London, England
1996 Picturing Modernity; San Francisco Museum of Mod-
ern Art, San Francisco, California
1999 Some Photographs, an Independent Art; Victoria and
Albert Museum, London, England
2000 Modern Starts; Museum of Modern Art, New York,
New York
2001 Open Ends; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New
York
Selected Works
Boy Sitting on Wall, Jarrow, 1976
Seacoalers, 1976
Workers, Pirelli Factory, 1989
Jarrow, England, 1998
Further Reading
Badger, Gerry. ‘‘We Are Making a New World: Chris Killip
‘In Flagrante.’’’ In Peter Turner and Gerry Badger, eds.
Photo Texts. London: Travelling Light, 1988.
Badger, Gerry.Chris Killip. London: Phaidon 55.
‘‘Chris Killip Photographs Fondation Cartier pour l’art
contemporain 1975–1976 in the North East.’’Creative
Camera155 (1977) entire issue.
Davis, Sue. ‘‘Chris Killip.’’Camera International, No. 9,
Spring (1986): 40–49.
Haworth-Booth, Mark. ‘‘Chris Killip: Scenes from Another
Country.’’Aperture, 103, Summer (1986): 16–31.
Killip, Chris.Isle of Man. Text by John Berger. London:
Zwemmer/AC of GB, 1980.
Killip, Chris.In Flagrante. Text by John Berger and Sylvia
Grant. London: Secker & Warburg, 1988.
Kismaric, Susan, ed.British Photography from the Thatcher
Years. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1990.
Osman, Colin, and Peter Turner. ‘‘Chris Killip: Isle of Man
Portfolio.’’Camera International Year Book 1975, Lon-
don: Coo Press, 1975.
Royal Academy of Arts, London.The Art of Photography
1839–1989. New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1989.AART KLEIN
Dutch
Without any formal education Aart Klein became
one of the most important Dutch photographers of
his generation. He is best known for his graphic
approach to photography.
My photography is called black-and-white photography,
but in fact it’s the other way around: white on black.
That is because if you don’t do anything, you get a black
image. Things only happen when you open the shutter:
then you make a drawing in white.
(Marsman 1996)
This statement, by far his most famous, reveals
his distinct vision and underlines how much he
valued the technical aspect of photography.
Aart Klein was born in 1909 in Amsterdam. At
the age of 21, he took a job as an office clerk at the
Polygoon photo press agency. In the nine years that
followed, he moved up from administrative assis-
tant to one of the agency’s most important photo-
graphers. Negatives of this period, his learning
years, are lost, however. During the World War II
years he held various jobs, including press photo-
grapher and an official photographer for the city of
Amsterdam taking wedding photos. In 1943, he was
forced to work in Germany by the Nazi occupiers
taking portraits. On a leave back in Amsterdam he
went underground. With the Donia Group, a resis-
tance cell, he took pictures that were sent to the
Allied forces in England. Later, he registered his
country’s liberation with a group of photographers
called Particam, or Partisan Cameras.
In 1946, Aart Klein and Sem Presser, on assign-
ment for the Dutch Ministry of Information, cap-
tured the state of post-war Germany in the book
Zoo leeft Duitschland. Op de puinhopen van het
Derde Rijk(How Germany Lives. On the Ruins of
the Third Reich).
After the war, Klein, with his colleagues Maria
Austria, Henk Jonker, and Wim Zilver Rupe from
Particam, founded a photo agency using their lib-KLEIN, AART