Family and Filmstrips

Heavily influenced by the sensationalist work of the American photographer Weegee, the Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken found fame as a chronicler of exuberant street life in Paris and Amsterdam. In this photograph, the artist’s first wife and fellow photographer, Ata Kando, relaxes with her children in a corner of their cramped Parisian apartment. Multiple layers of looking—including the children’s focus on the photobook and the viewer’s gaze through translucent photo negatives hung from the ceiling to dry—evoke the voyeurism that marks much of Van der Elsken’s work. At the same time, the photograph is infused, like nearly all his images, with an intimate, romantic sensibility that betrays the artist’s deep personal engagement with his subjects.