FMP † Helena van der Kraan

Doing the BA, 30 years ago, one of my tutors was Helena van der Kraan.

She died last week on her 80th birthday.

Her work is discriped as: “An understated form of visual poetry.”

At this moment she has a big exhibition in the photography museum in The Hague. She taught me to look different at photo's, not to always look for the perfect composition.

Over the last years I met her several times and we also had work in an exhibition together. She had become a lot more relaxed. Told me that she wasn't interested in meeting new people any longer but was glad to meet people she knew.

She stopped working in the darkroom. Had always worked on Agfa Bravira paper, and couldn't buy it any longer, I had some packages left but she was not interested she told me. After one of the meetings my husband and I got a letter with a photo she made of my husband in the classroom in 1988. The text says " a memory, Breda, from Helena, 1988/557."

In the book "Helena van der Kraan", which was published in honor of her 65th birthday, you can read how she was annoyed as a teacher at the BA by the students who explained their photos in detail, before anything was seen. Reading that now she influenced me more, I guess, as I realised before. I hate it when people have an amazing story and then show me the images and I don't see it there.

An article on her exhibition:

https://www.fotomuseumdenhaag.nl/en/exhibitions/helena-van-der-kraan