Koen Wessing (1942-2011) was born in Amsterdam during the German occupation. His father, Han Wessing, was an interior designer; his mother, Eva Eisenloeffel, a sculptor. Koen Wessing grew up after the war in an intellectual milieu in the Netherlands. Many of his generation were highly aware of the violence, misery and genocide that only ended immediately before or after their birth; they were brought up in the climate of reconstruction, resilience, optimism and social progress that shaped their teenage years.
Wessing taught himself to become a photographer, working as an assistant to the Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken for two years. A born globetrotter, he began by hitchhiking across Europe. Later, he would often finance his travels by borrowing money and going wherever the fancy took him. His photos show us the “god-forsaken of the earth”, but without dehumanising them, without making victims of them: they remain fellow human beings.
