Eva Besnyö

Photographer, feminist, phenomenon: Eva Besnyö (1910–2003) changed photography forever. Together with her contemporaries, she experimented extensively with her camera: moving away from painting, focusing on reality, capturing close-ups and full of dynamism. 

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Eva Besnyö – The Liberated Camera is one of the largest retrospective exhibitions ever held of her work. You follow her life story and discover how she developed as a photographer: from her first steps with the camera in Budapest and her formative years in the gritty Berlin of the 1930s to her life and career in Amsterdam. The Second World War, which left a deep mark on her due to her Jewish background, and her involvement in the Dolle Mina movement in the 1970s are also featured.

The exhibition features some 200 photographs from the museum’s collection, the largest Besnyö collection in the world. All the photographs were printed by Besnyö herself or under her supervision in the darkroom. On display are, amongst other things, her iconic portrait of the little boy with the bass, portraits of artist friends such as Charley Toorop and Violette Cornelius, and the world-famous street scene on Starnberger Straße in Berlin, featuring the diagonal lines so characteristic of Besnyö’s work.

New Photography

Stylistically, much of Besnyö’s work belongs to the New Photography movement, a movement in which the camera was used to show the world in a new, objective and experimental way. Surprising camera angles, strong diagonal lines and clear compositions are characteristic of this movement.

Beyond the Nuclear Family X Eva Besnyö 

Alongside more than 200 vintage photographs by Eva Besnyö, the exhibition also features Beyond the Nuclear Family by artist and writer Mirthe Berentsen (1984). Berentsen builds on the covered wagon journey undertaken by the Dolle Mina’s in 1972, which Besnyö photographed at the time. Since 2025, Berentsen has been travelling the country in her own covered wagon, exploring the traditional nuclear family and the role assigned to women within it. In doing so, she asks: can we also view the care and responsibility of parenthood as a shared journey?
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Workshop Patchwork

Would you like to work with others on a new story about the family? If so, sign up for one of the textile workshops Patchwork: Beyond the Nuclear Family

Catalogue

The approximately 200 photographs have been compiled in the catalogue Eva Besnyö – The Liberated Camera. This beautifully designed book will be on sale in our museum shop from 5 September.

This exhibition was made possible in part with the support of the Municipality of The Hague, VriendenLoterij, the Erik Bos Fund and the Society of Friends of Kunstmuseum Den Haag (Vereniging Vrienden van Kunstmuseum Den Haag) and V-fonds.