| | | | | | | | | Harlem, 1960 © Saul Leiter / Saul Leiter Foundation. | | | | | | | A retrospective | | | | 24 January – 23 April 2025 | | | | Opening: Thursday 23 January 18:30 | | | | | | | ... until 26 February 2025 | | | | | | | ... until 26 February 2025 | | | | | | | ... until 2 February 2025 | | | | | | Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Keizersgracht 609 . 1017 DS Amsterdam
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ana, 1950s © Saul Leiter / Saul Leiter Foundation. | | | | | | | A retrospective | | | | 24 January – 23 April 2025 | | | Opening: Thursday 23 January 18:30
Foam is proud to present a major retrospective exhibition of the celebrated American artist Saul Leiter (1923–2013). Leiter is seen as one of the most important photographers of the 1950’s in the United States and a pioneer of colour photography. The exhibition An Unfinished World brings together over 200 works, consisting of photography, both black-and-white and colour, as well as his abstract paintings. His eclectic oeuvre reveals a practice using shadow, light, and reflections to craft layered compositions. | | | | | | | | | | Footprints 1950 © Saul Leiter / Saul Leiter Foundation. | | | | | | For nearly sixty years, Leiter photographed daily, capturing everyday moments of New York City life. With various techniques and mediums, and the use of telephoto lenses, Leiter would enhance the painterly quality of his images and transform seemingly mundane street scenes into visual poetry. New York, a symbol of modernity in the 1950s, became the backdrop for Leiter’s aesthetic discoveries.
By shooting in the rain and snow, and using windows and other reflective surfaces, he created abstract images. A red umbrella, a green traffic light, or the yellow flash of a passing taxi add an unexpected play of colour to his photographs. In the 1940s and 1950s, Leiter was virtually the only non-commercial photographer to work in colour. The use of aged or damaged film allowed him to include surprising compositions with shifts in light and colour. Once lost to obscurity, his work was rediscovered in the mid 2010s for its ground-breaking role in the emergence of colour photography.
Photographs are often treated as important moments, but really they are fragments and souvenirs of an unfinished world.
– Saul Leiter
Leiter was a self-taught photographer whose strong sense of curiosity made him a lifelong student. He maintained his experimental and spontaneous approach throughout his career, which is evident in both his street photography and fashion work. Upon his death in 2013, Leiter left behind a remarkable collection of approximately 15,000 black-and-white prints, at least 40,000 colour slides, a similar number of black-and-white negatives and over 4000 paintings, only a handful of which have been seen publicly. The exhibition An Unfinished World offers visitors the chance to admire the endless poetry of Saul Leiter’s artistic practice through his paintings, photography and unique view on the world around him. | | | | | | | | | | Untitled, undated © Saul Leiter / Saul Leiter Foundation. | | | | | | Saul Leiter (1923–2013) began painting and photographing in his teenage years, gaining an early recognition for his paintings. After moving to New York in 1946, he turned to photography as a profession while continuing to paint. His abstract forms and groundbreaking compositions possess a painterly quality that distinguishes them from the works of other photographers of that era. His work significantly contributed to the emergence of what is now known as the New York School of photography. In 1957, he began working for major publications like Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar, balancing his commercial success with his personal passion for street photography in his Manhattan neighborhood.
Leiter's groundbreaking work in colour photography gained widespread acclaim with the release of his first book, Early Color (2006). By the time of his death in 2013, Leiter had achieved international recognition, with his work featured in numerous museum exhibitions and publications worldwide. | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Inez van Lamsweerde, Amsterdam 1992 © Koos Breukel | | | | | | | ... until 26 February 2025 | | | Foam presents Meet the Artist, an exhibition that offers a special insight into the life and career of one of the Netherlands' leading portrait photographers: Koos Breukel. This exhibition not only offers an overview of his impressive oeuvre, but also invites visitors to meet the artist himself and engage in conversation with him. In a specially equipped photo studio within the exhibition, there is even the possibility to be photographed by Breukel himself.
The exhibition features mostly artist portraits that represent a cross-section of Breukel's career, from 1982 to the present. His photographs are known for their ability to capture the everyday and the coincidental, with attention to vulnerability and authenticity. His portraits are often shot with analogue cameras and have a timeless and pure appearance. Thanks to Breukel's empathetic approach and the creation of an atmosphere of mutual trust, his subjects dare to be vulnerable, which is reflected in the photos. | | | | | | | | | | Jan Wolkers, Texel 2007 © Koos Breukel | | | | | | Meet the Artist highlights the people who have played an important role in Breukel’s development as a photographer and person. Portraits of influential figures such as Robert Frank, Ata Kandó, Ed van der Elsken, and Marlene Dumas, show his sources of inspiration and the people who shaped him.
A special aspect of the exhibition is the active presence of Koos Breukel himself. During the entire exhibition period, he will be present for four days a week in his photo studio in the exhibition, where visitors can discuss his work, inspiration and his vision on photography with him. There is even a chance to be photographed by Breukel personally and thus become part of his artistic process. The exhibition is an invitation to experience Koos Breukel and his creative world up close.
Koos Breukel (1962, The Hague) is a leading Dutch portrait photographer. After studying at the School for Photography and Photonics in The Hague, he established himself as a freelance photographer in Amsterdam, where he specialized in portrait photography. In 1999, he focused almost entirely on autonomous work, mainly commissioned by museums and galleries. Since 2010, he has been making dozens of portraits of the Netherlands' greatest actors for the DeLaMar theater in Amsterdam.
He was a photography teacher at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and is known for his compelling series of seriously ill friends. Breukel has received several awards, including the Incentive Award from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts in 1994 and the Best Designed Book Award twice. His work has been exhibited (inter)nationally, from the MEP in Paris to the Pori Art Museum in Finland. | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Strategy of Beautification, Hijab and Face Cut Out, video still, 2017 © Sarah Amrani. | | | | | | | ... until 26 February 2025 | | | | Foam 3h presents Terror of Beauty, the first solo museum exhibition by artist Sarah Amrani. With her work, Amrani explores the complex relationship between technology, culture and beauty standards. The multimedial exhibition invites visitors to think critically about how our perception of beauty and identity is shaped in the digital age. | | | | | | | Strategy of Beautification, 2018 © Sarah Amrani. | | | | | | Sarah Amrani explores the effect of social media and technologies on the experience of female identity, with a focus on the face as a battleground of beauty. In a time where we are constantly confronted with unrealistic beauty standards, through our phones, television and advertising, Terror of Beauty offers a moment to reflect. The exhibition also explores AI-driven beauty filters that are used to construct a preview of physical surgical procedures. Disguised as a tool, this contributes to the pressure to meet certain standards.
An important topic for Amrani is the hijab as a visual frame of the female face. A frame that not only emphasizes her beauty, but also reflects women’s autonomy and self-expression. Driven by a fascination with the visual language of the hijab in a digital context, such as in makeup tutorials, she began to explore the hijab in relation to beauty standards and digital technologies. In doing so, she presents an underexplored perspective in the conversation about beauty and the digital world and challenges the current societal discourse on this topic.
Terror of Beauty highlights the intersection between technology, culture and beauty standards, and challenges visitors to think about the influence of developments in this area on our self-image. The exhibition contains photography, video installations, and textile works
Sarah Amrani is the eighth recipient of the Florentine Riem Vis Grant. The grant was established in memory of Florentine Riem Vis (1959-2016) and is awarded annually to enable a young artist to further develop their artistic career. Previous recipients include Steffi Reimers (2023), Bebe Blanco Agterberg (2022), Karolina Wojtas (2021), Gilleam Trapenberg (2020), Solène Gün (2019), Rebecca Sampson (2018) and Stefanie Moshammer (2016/17). | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | A group of Ajax football players wearing red t-shirts in a studio
Ajax, 1967
© Paul Huf / MAI. | | | | | | Golden Years | | | | ... until 2 February 2025 | | | Foam celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of renowned Dutch photographer Paul Huf with a retrospective, Golden Years. Huf emerged as a leading figure in the fields of advertising, fashion, and portrait photography during the 1950s, and was innovative with his use of colour. Notably, Paul Huf played a crucial role in the establishment of Foam Photography Museum Amsterdam, co-founding the institution in 2001.
This exhibition showcases over 100 works that provide deep insights into Huf's diverse oeuvre. Known for his theatrical and colourful aesthetics, as well as his ability to create unique compositions, Huf became one of the most prominent photographers of his time. He played a crucial role in professionalising commissioned photography in the Netherlands and is celebrated as a pioneer who elevated Dutch (advertising) photography as an art form. | | | | | | | | | Closeup of a woman in black and white, wearing a headpiece that covers her hair.
Mode voor Avenue, 1966
© Paul Huf / MAI. | | | | | | Golden Years features iconic campaigns such as ‘Vakmanschap is Meesterschap’ (‘Craftsmanship is Mastery’) for Grolsch Brewery, fashion shoots for magazines such as Margriet and Avenue, and the famous portrait of Ajax legends Klaas Nuninga, Sjaak Swart, Piet Keizer, and Johan Cruijff. A personal highlight of his career was photographing the Dutch Royal Family in 1952, an honour that led to numerous subsequent commissions from the Royal House. Huf was the first official court photographer, paving the way for renowned successors such as Koos Breukel, Anton Corbijn, and Rineke Dijkstra.
Huf's impact on commissioned photography is further demonstrated by the album covers he designed in 1954 for Philips' classical music collection, a bold departure from the plain brown sleeves that were typically used for records at the time. British model Ann Pickford appeared on all covers, as there were few professional models in the Netherlands during that period. These covers even went on to inspire the song ‘Hoezepoes’ (‘Covergirl’) by famed Dutch writer Annie M.G. Schmidt.
Huf's artistic versatility extended beyond photography, as shown through his work as a filmmaker. His documentary on painter Carel Willink from 1975 was awarded with several prizes and will be screened in the exhibition at Foam for the first time. | | | | | | | | | Fashion show on the bike, Queenies on their feet, The Netherlands in the 60s
© Paul Huf / MAI. | | | | | | | Paul Huf (1924-2002, Amsterdam) was a self-taught artist who began photographing during his teenage years, inspired by his father's hobby. By experimenting in a self-made darkroom, he mastered the techniques of developing and printing photos. Throughout his career, Huf garnered numerous awards and exhibited his work internationally. He had a special connection with Foam, having played a role in the museum’s establishment. In recognition of his contributions, the Foam Paul Huf Award has been presented annually since 2007, supporting and promoting emerging photographers on a global scale. | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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