Exhibition opening and book launch Ed van der Elsken, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Opening and book launch Ed van der Elsken. Up Close, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Thursday, June 18, 2026, 19:30
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

On Thursday evening, June 18, we launch the book Ed van der Elsken. Up Close at the opening of the eponymous exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

A cyclist cheekily sticking out her tongue, tough youths on Amsterdam’s Nieuwendijk, young women in miniskirts. From the Netherlands to Cuba and Japan, Ed van der Elsken chased the unfiltered energy of life itself. Different streets, a different time – and yet you recognise it. Up Close takes you on a journey with the Netherlands’ most famous photographer of the twentieth century. Searching, refining, starting all over over: three years of research into his extensive private archive, which the Rijksmuseum together with the Nederlands Fotomuseum hold, reveals the workings of a free-spirited, fierce, and sometimes unsure talent of unprecedented energy and vitality.

Ed van der Elsken. Up Close is written by Hinde Haest, curator of Photography at the Rijksmuseum. Available in Dutch and English.