Eva Besnyö

A prominent figure in the Dutch New Photography movement, Eva Besnyö is best known for her remarkable landscapes, portraits, and architectural photographs, which retain their incredible intensity to this day. But beyond her impressive technical accomplishments, Besnyö’s cultural and political sensitivities have played an equally influential role in her work.

 

Beginning her journey with an apprenticeship under renowned Hungarian photographer József Pécsi, Besnyö moved to Berlin in the 1930s, where the Modernist avant-garde art scene was a decisive factor in the development of her personal photographic style. An important period for Besnyö intellectually as well, her time in Berlin also laid the foundations for the political awareness that would become an essential element in her life and work. Besnyö’s insightful black-and-white photographs—many of which are reproduced here—depict dramatic events and political movements that took place throughout Europe in the twentieth century, including images that capture instances of fascism, Nazism, and issues relating to immigration.

 

The first English-language retrospective of Besnyö’s award-winning body of photography, this book—published to accompany an exhibition by the Verborgene Museum to be held at the Berlinische Galerie—features nearly two hundred reproductions of original vintage prints of towns and landscapes during politically turbulent times.