“Archive” (MACK/2021): van Manen setting up her tripod in water to take a photograph.

Bertien van Manen was born in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1935, and spent her childhood at a Catholic school in Heerlen, the central town of the former Dutch mining region in the east of the country. She went on to study French and German literature at Leiden University, and after graduating, supported herself and her two young children by working as a translator, a French language lecturer at Leiden University, and a model.

One day, however, an assistant she met at a party held at her home invited her to step behind the lens — and at the age of forty, she made the decision to transition from being photographed to taking photographs herself, becoming one of the few female fashion photographers in Amsterdam at the time. That same year, she was profoundly struck by The Americans (published 1958), the landmark documentary photobook by Swiss photographer Robert Frank, and subsequently turned to documentary photography.

The intensity of that passion can be seen in her 1975 series, "I Will Be Wolf" (published 2017), shot in Budapest—then still behind the Iron Curtain. The series captures Hungary before the spread of globalisation, photographed on black-and-white film with a sense of distance strongly reminiscent of Frank's influence.


“I Will Be Wolf” (MACK/2017): As her cameras grew smaller and her photography moved closer to its essence, her technical mastery became less immediately apparent in her later work — yet her early monochrome photographs reveal van Manen's outstanding skill and sensibility as a photographer, along with a strong awareness of composition.

Nevertheless, for van Manen—a mother raising children while nurturing a desire to test not only the demands of domestic life but also her potential—success as a photographer required considerable resolve and persistent courage.

She photographed her family and relatives, accumulated images of the mining village where she had grown up, and produced social documentary work in the tradition of the women's liberation movement then at its height. Yet it was not until 1994 that the visual language most closely associated with her name was fully established and her work began to receive international recognition.


“Easter and Oak Trees" (MACK/2013). Although never presented as a series at the time, van Manen photographed her family throughout the 1970s. Years later, her son, who appears as a subject in the work, suggested the rediscovered photographs, leading to their eventual publication.


“I Am The Only Woman There” (Fw:books/2024) : Her series "Vrouwen te Gast (Women as Guests)", documenting the wives of migrant workers and female migrant workers employed in the Netherlands, was published in 1979 by the Dutch feminist press Sara—her first photobook. Dutch graphic designer Hans Gremmen's independent press, Fw:Books, re-edited and reissued it as a new publication in 2024.


"Gluckauf" (Fw:Books/2023): Between 1985 and 2013, van Manen made repeated visits to mining communities in the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Russia. Having grown up in a mining town, van Manen found in these communities—the families and the life lived within them—something far more than mere subject matter: a place of quiet comfort. Those photographs were gathered into two photobooks, "Moonshine" (MACK/2014) and "Gluckauf"

"A Hundred Summers, A Hundred Winters" (published 1994), photographed between 1991 and 1994, stands among the earliest documentary work made in Moscow, St Petersburg, Odessa, Tomsk, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Moldavia, Georgia, and other regions following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Van Manen was one of the first photographers to gain access to those countries.

Taking her time to learn Russian, she photographed the people she encountered and grew close to in each place, conveying the daily lives and richness of countries that had until then remained shrouded in mystery. It was at this point that her approach — building relationships with her subjects and photographing over extended periods — and her documentary method of drawing out the social from within the intimate could be said to have fully matured.

In part because other photographers arriving from abroad had tended to photograph only the most picturesquely bleak scenes, Boris Mikhailov—one of Ukraine's foremost photographers—was initially sceptical of her work. He quickly recognised, however, that she was attempting to capture something genuine rather than performative, and she offered words of praise.

“A Hundred Summers, A Hundred Winters (De Verbeelding/1994)”: Her official first book and defining work. Van Manen sought to portray society through the lives of individuals— refusing to reduce them to stereotypes. A compact camera with automatic shooting was used to blend naturally into the communities she photographed. The photographs of Mikhailov and the Kharkiv School, from the same era, depict Ukraine from within.

"Let's Sit Down Before We Go" (MACK/2011): British photographer Stephen Gill re-edited and restructured this book from photographs not included in A Hundred Summers, A Hundred Winters, rethinking the sequencing from the ground up. Van Manen has spoken of how, during the period in which she made those earlier photographs, strict rules still governed what a photograph ought to be. This book deliberately incorporates out-of-focus images, overexposed frames, and unconventionally composed photographs — a work that invites reflection on what constitutes a good photograph, and one in which the essence of van Manen's practice is expressed with particular clarity. Her later publication, "I Will Be Wolf",  was also edited by Stephen Gill.

"East Wind, West Wind" (De Verbeelding/2001): Between July 1997 and May 2000, van Manen visited China on fourteen occasions — and it was only on her tenth visit, she has said, that she finally understood what she wanted to photograph. Her second photobook, it portrays the rhythms of everyday life and the pursuit of leisure in contemporary China. The book design by Mevis & Van Deursen is equally remarkable.


“Give Me Your Image” (Steidl/2006): A vernacular photography and found-photo series made after van Manen became fascinated by photographs displayed inside private homes. The book gathers "photographs of photographs" found in homes across Lithuania, Greece, Germany, Italy, Austria, France, Bulgaria, Moldavia, the Netherlands, and elsewhere—a work that might also be described as a distillation of the essence of van Manen's practice.

Following the success of A Hundred Summers, A Hundred Winters, van Manen's next destination was China—then in the midst of transformation as waves of Westernisation swept through it. Between 1997 and 2000, she made repeated visits to various regions across the country, resulting in East Wind, West Wind (published 2001).

In 2003, she received a succession of photography awards and gained growing international recognition through exhibitions held around the world. Then, entering the 2010s, London publisher MACK — one of the key driving forces behind the photobook movement that emerged across Europe and beyond — began publishing van Manen's early and new work in rapid succession. The result was that her name reached an ever wider generation of readers, and she came to exert an influence on photographers across generations and national boundaries.

Van Manen's photographs are grounded in her personal relationships with her subjects, yet their aim is never to depict those relationships themselves. Drawing close to the people she photographs, she nonetheless always maintains the position of a visitor. It is precisely this dynamic — intimacy held alongside a certain respectful distance — that lends her photographs their organic, poetic quality and their acuity of vision. Just as The Americans once moved her to travel, van Manen's own photobooks will surely continue, across time, to draw readers towards journeys as yet unmade.

“Archive” (MACK/2021): MACK produced five of van Manen's photobooks during the 2010s. Published in 2021, this volume serves as a kind of retrospective — bringing together selections from all her series alongside a substantial number of previously unpublished photographs. It is also an invaluable document in its own right, running to a generous 384 pages.

Long harbouring the dream of one day inviting van Manen herself to present a solo exhibition, IACK had been quietly collecting her photobooks over the years—but on 27th May 2024, the artist passed away. The exhibition currently on view at the shop presents all ten photobooks published to date, centred on her most recent title, I Am The Only Woman There (2024)—a newly re-edited version of the first photobook she published in 1979—offering an introduction to her finest work and the arc of her practice.

Also on display are The Americans, the book that first prompted her to become a photographer, and Boris Mikhailov's landmark work Case History (published 1999)—photographed from within post-Soviet Kharkiv, Ukraine, between 1997 and 1998. Whether you are encountering her name for the very first time or have long been familiar with her work, we hope this exhibition offers an opportunity to experience its richness from fresh and multiple perspectives.

Article by Yukihito Kono (6 September, 2024)

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Works Mapped in Chronological Order

1970s–1980s | #Family Photographs Easter and Oak Trees (MACK/2013)

1975 | #Journeys Abroad
I Will Be Wolf (MACK/2017)

1975–1979 | #Reportage on Migrant and Working Women
I Am The Only Woman There (Fw: Books/2024)

1985–2013 | #Mining Communities Moonshine (MACK/2014)
Glückauf (Fw: Books/2023)

1991–1994 | #Post-Soviet Countries
A Hundred Summers, A Hundred Winters (De Verbeelding/1994)
Let's Sit Down Before We Go (MACK/2011)

1997–2000 | #China
East Wind, West Wind (De Verbeelding/2001)

2002–2005 | #Vernacular Photography / Found-Photo Work Exploring the Nature of Photography
Give Me Your Image (Steidl/2006)

2013–2015 | #Late Personal and Poetic Photography
Beyond Maps and Atlases (MACK/2016)

1970–2021 | #Complete Works
Archive (MACK/2021)

For those wishing to learn more about the artist:
Interview | Aperture, Issue 220, "The Interview Issue", Autumn 2015
Complete works, including unpublished photographs, essays and diary entries | Archive (MACK/2021)

Also browse our Bertien van Manen archive collection:
www.iack.online/en/collections/bertien-van-manen-archives

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Feature: Bertien van Manen
The Photobooks of Bertien van Manen
Dates: Saturday 31st August – Monday 23rd September 2024 *Open Saturdays, Sundays and Public
Holidays Hours: 11:00–14:00 / 15:00–18:00
Venue: IACK
www.iack.online/pages/feature-bertien-van-manen