Théophile de Bock, the tree photographer
Théophile de Bock was a 19th century Dutch landscape painter whose current claim to fame is that his makes such a good street or school name.
He was also a landscape photographer and interestingly it appears that he was the only Dutch landscape photographer at the time. Arjan de Nooy explains:
Customers were not interested and [landscape photography] was apparently not attractive to photographers. In comparison with international nineteenth-century landscape photographers (such as Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton Watkins, Gustave Le Gray) De Bock’s photos are more intimate and small-scale. He was, literally, close to his favourite subject, the trees and in particular his tree trunk photos are unique in nineteenth-century photography.
De Bock was only a photographer for a short time and it seems that his photos were only recently rediscovered. De Nooy believes that the success of his paintings put a stop to De Bock’s photography.
De Nooy has curated an exhibit at Walden Affairs in The Hague until 22 November. (The exhibit is open during the weekends and on appointment.)
(Link: Trendbeheer)
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