Bart van Leeuwen

Bart van Leeuwen (Amsterdam, 1950) is a Dutch photographer and author. He published his first pictures in 1967, graduated from the School for Professional Photography in The Hague in 1969 and started to work as a freelance photographer in 1971. Inspired by film noir, Italian neorealism and photographers like Avedon, Brassaï, Frank, Kertész, Lartigue, Newton and Penn he developed a narrative, cinematographic style, linking facts and fiction. He published "Nabelichting", an autobiographical novel, in 2012. Due to a neuromuscular disorder he retired in 2005 and now lives with his wife and son just outside Amsterdam.

Acclaim

Van Leeuwen has had much critical acclaim over the course of his career. He has received multiple awards and has often been asked to teach by universities.

Hannah Hör writes: A fashion photographer who completely rewrote the rules of his trade, using city streets as expressive backdrops, offering an almost casual perspective on cutting-edge fashion designs, and favouring coincidence over carefully crafted poses, Bart van Leeuwen is a master of his profession. His body of work is an intoxicating journey into sensual metropolises like Naples and through fashion capitals such as New York and Paris. The Dutch artist captures the poetic stories of everyday life with cinematographic elegance, drawing inspiration from the contrast-rich style of Film Noir and from Italian neorealism.

Van Leeuwen’s life seems almost too remarkable to capture in just a few words. As a young fashion photographer, he made his way to the epicentres of haute couture; Paris and New York became his home during one of the most legendary eras in the history of fashion and art. The centre of his life was the fabled Chelsea Hotel. Andy Warhol filmed parts of “The Chelsea Girl” there, which enhanced the already mythical nature of the red brick building. Van Leeuwen’s works reflect the atmosphere of these bizarre, brilliant times at “the factory” and the fluctuation between avant-garde and underground. His work is intimately intertwined with his life; the artist’s first wife, Apollonia von Ravenstein, was both his model and his muse. He also photographed his second wife in a seductive pose, one of the rare occasions in which his model looks directly at the viewer. According to Van Leeuwen, “eye contact makes a spectator present in a mise-en-scène. Without it, an observer remains just that, observer of another reality which is actually an ancient principle from the art of painting.” Instead, he uses an intensely narrative approach, and the images from his “Modern Romantics” series seem like scenes from a film.

Van Leeuwen’s photographic oeuvre is characterised by chance and spontaneity. Whether shooting Andy Warhol during a workout in the factory or capturing Freddy Mercury, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Grace Jones as they happened to stand opposite him: “I always tried to be open to coincidences, not restricting myself to a pre-defined concept, to find things I wasn’t even looking for but that were actually better than I could have imagined.” The glamorous world of years gone by, captured in Van Leeuwen’s photographs, can be found in the private collections of fashion designers such as Theirry Mugler or Christian Lacroix, as well as in the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh.

Published Work

Some of Van Leeuwen's published work includes: APF Magazine Hong Kong, pgs. 45-56, Oct. 2013 Aesthetica Magazine, Hystoric Lifesyles pg. 35, Sept.-Oct. 2013 Framed in Print, Janna Laeven, NRC Next, 10/10/2013 Gup 38, 40 Years of Dutch Magazine Photography, 2013 Pf Magazine 3, pgs. 30-40, 2013 Fotofolio – 40 Years of Dutch Magazine Photography, Lecturis, 2013 Fashion Photography in the Netherlands, Irma v. Bommel, pgs. 73-74, 2012 Avro’s Kunstuur TV, Charlotte Ebers, Art 2 Read, 16/06/2012 NTR Kunststof Radio, Petra Possel, 06/06/2012 Vrij Nederland 21, Rudie Kagie, pgs. 20-26, 2012 Vogue NL 2, Fiona Hering, pgs. 164-171, 2012 Focus 6, pgs. 20-21, 2012 Nabelichting, Autobiography, 2012 Luxor Episodes, Jan Damen, 2009 IM, Gusta Winnubst, pg. 58, 2008 Photo Digital 04, pgs. 6-7, 2008 Punt, 65 Photographers for Hans van Blommestein, 2008 Avenue A-Z, Georgette Koning, NRC Handelsblad, 2006 Avenue A-Z, Nederlands Fotomuseum, pgs. 117-122, 2006 Tableau, Fine Arts Magazine 3, pg. 96, 2004 F.D.Stijl, Frederique Huygen, pg. 20, 2002 Tros 2Vandaag TV, Passie voor Pose, 11/2002 Residence, Marieke van Gessel, pgs. 76-81, 2002 Creative Red Book 1999/2000 Art View, pg. 77, 1999 Haute Culture, Mary Hessing, Gisela Prager, 1998 Beeldspraak, Ton Hendriks, 1995 Candy Dulfer, Joep Kock, 1994 Focus 5, pg. 23, 1991 Eye to Eye, Henk Gerritsen, 1991 The Decisive Image, Ingeborg Leijerzapf, 1991 Nieuws Tribune 40, Lenie Stockmann, pg. 51, 1990 Modus, Pauline Terreehorst, 1990 Focus 10, pg. 43, 1989