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Lot Essay
Violette Cornelius (1919 -1998)
Violette Cornelius is one of the most important Dutch woman photographers. She emigrated to the Netherlands with her parents in 1938. She studied photography under Paul Guermonprez at the Amsterdam Nieuwe Kunstschool (New Arts School) that had been founded in 1933 on the basis of the German Bauhaus.
Soon after the German invasion, she got involved in an artists resistance group, the clandestine magazine De Vrije Kunstenaar (The Free Artist) and later on the Persoonsbewijzen Centrale. The negatives of the photographs taken during that period were buried outside Amsterdam and were returned by an unknown person after the Liberation. After the war, Violette Cornelius became a prominent architectural photographer. She married the musician Jan Huckriede (1914-2002) and in 1946 their son Florian was born. In 1949 she divorces Huckriede and it is in that period that Jan Rietveld (1919-1986), son of Gerrit, introduces her to a group of architects around the magazine Forum. In 1954 she makes a series of the sculpture pavilion Sonsbeek by Gerrit Rietveld. In 1952 she meets with Jurriaan Schrofer with whom she lives from 1958 in an apartment at Spuistraat 125A rebuilt by Jan Rietveld. Through her participation in the Tellem expedition in 1964, however, she opted for reportage photography. She took photographs for company publications and eventually concentrated on documenting migration to urban areas in developing countries in Africa and elsewhere (Iraq, India and Peru).
cf. M. Küper, I. van Zijl, Gerrit Th. Rietveld 1888-1964. Het volledige werk, Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1992, nr. 35, pp. 74-76, with ill.
Violette Cornelius is one of the most important Dutch woman photographers. She emigrated to the Netherlands with her parents in 1938. She studied photography under Paul Guermonprez at the Amsterdam Nieuwe Kunstschool (New Arts School) that had been founded in 1933 on the basis of the German Bauhaus.
Soon after the German invasion, she got involved in an artists resistance group, the clandestine magazine De Vrije Kunstenaar (The Free Artist) and later on the Persoonsbewijzen Centrale. The negatives of the photographs taken during that period were buried outside Amsterdam and were returned by an unknown person after the Liberation. After the war, Violette Cornelius became a prominent architectural photographer. She married the musician Jan Huckriede (1914-2002) and in 1946 their son Florian was born. In 1949 she divorces Huckriede and it is in that period that Jan Rietveld (1919-1986), son of Gerrit, introduces her to a group of architects around the magazine Forum. In 1954 she makes a series of the sculpture pavilion Sonsbeek by Gerrit Rietveld. In 1952 she meets with Jurriaan Schrofer with whom she lives from 1958 in an apartment at Spuistraat 125A rebuilt by Jan Rietveld. Through her participation in the Tellem expedition in 1964, however, she opted for reportage photography. She took photographs for company publications and eventually concentrated on documenting migration to urban areas in developing countries in Africa and elsewhere (Iraq, India and Peru).
cf. M. Küper, I. van Zijl, Gerrit Th. Rietveld 1888-1964. Het volledige werk, Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 1992, nr. 35, pp. 74-76, with ill.