From the 1970s, Robert de Hartogh was one of the first to photograph guest workers in the Netherlands. The Rotterdam photographer would continue to follow migrant workers in the Netherlands for more than thirty years. He recorded almost every facet of their lives, from a visit to the Aliens Police to the celebration of parties. Thousands of his recordings can be seen on his website (robertdehartogh.nl). They have ‘made an important contribution to the image of migrants in the Netherlands’, says the Nederlands Fotomuseum, which manages the photographer’s archive.
De Hartogh passed away on Friday at the age of 79. He had a predilection for etchings, but would become known for his photography. The fact that he started following guest workers with his camera was due to a combination of circumstances. During his education at the Academy of Visual Arts in Rotterdam, he met a Turkish fellow student, who later played an important role in the emancipation of Turkish women in the Netherlands.
She introduced him to Turkish families. He was with one of those families when riots broke out on Rotterdam’s Afrikaanderplein in 1972. Slum lords had bought up many buildings in the area to make a substantial profit by housing guest workers. This led to the displeasure of the old residents of the area, who turned against the migrants.
“We were inside with a family. The Molotov cocktails flew through the windows. I then decided to pick up the camera. To show people who were not seen,” De Hartogh later told writer Abdelkader Benali. He registered at the beginning of this year Fidelity a column about the photographer.
Last Friday, De Hartogh was mentioned in an article in a Gouda newspaper, because his photos will be on display in Museum Gouda from April 2023. This exhibition combines his work with new photographs by his colleague Khalid Amakran, who is himself the son of a guest worker, who is almost fifty years his junior. A day later, De Hartogh died unexpectedly.
Museum Gouda announces that the exhibition with the work of De Hartogh and Amakran will continue next year. Their exhibition is part of a series, ‘De Mix Nederland’, which can be seen every year in a museum near a train station. Historical photography is used as a source of inspiration for contemporary Dutch photographers. Amakran will be taking photos and videos of children and grandchildren of Moroccan labor migrants in the coming period. In the newspaper article he called on candidates to apply.
‘It is the intention’, says Amakran, who has had a lot of contact with De Hartogh in recent months, ‘that his work and my work will be alternately displayed in the exhibition. I’m selecting his photos. I hope to be able to pay tribute to him with the result.’