Knitting at the beach: tourism and the photography of Dutch fabriculture

Abstract

This article considers the picturesque spectacle of knitting women dressed in attire, set against the background of the dunes in the Dutch province of Zeeland. Images of the knitting women at the beach were incorporated in the current visual repertory of the tourist press, including picture postcards. Taking its cue from a picture on knitters at the beach by the well-known modernist photographer Eva Besnyö, this article aims to show a pictorial tradition in which nationalist and tourist representations are linked to convey a Dutch Heimat idyll. ARTICLE HISTORY

Eva Besnyö Pictures the Dutch

“…Besnyö's photo wall, featuring characteristic Dutch portraits and landscapes, was commissioned and produced in the very years that popular ideas on folklore and nature were innovated in a wave of publications about the people (especially the denizens of the countryside and the coast -as the core of the nation). 60 While avant-garde artists could be receptive to nationalist sentiments, Besnyö, as a Hungarian with Berlin experience, had a more international outlook on life and visual aesthetics despite having to deal with the commercial aspects of art and the artist.…”