Dutch Photographers since 1938

Steenhuizen, Paul Louis

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  Steenhuizen bij zijn werk als preparateur, Amsterdam (1891-1937)

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Short description

Paul Louis Steenhuizen has been called the pioneer of Dutch bird photography. The archive of his glass negatives contains pictures of both live- and stuffed birds of The Netherlands. Steenhuizen owes most of his fame to his activities as taxidermist more... »

Paul Louis Steenhuizen has been called the pioneer of Dutch bird photography. The archive of his glass negatives contains pictures of both live- and stuffed birds of The Netherlands. Steenhuizen owes most of his fame to his activities as taxidermist with the Amsterdam Zoo (Artis Natura Magistra) and for the making of dioramas, the miniature landscapes in which he positioned stuffed animals. The expert stuffing of dead animals was regarded as an artistic occupation and Steenhuizen was highly praised for his artistic achievements as a taxidermist. He had probably been taught the craft by his father who had been employed by the Leiden State Museum of Natural History, and he gathered more experience during an apprenticeship at the British Museum of Natural History in London.

His activities as a, largely self-taught, photographer were split between his employment by the Artis Zoo and ornithology in general. In 1919 G. Dieterle described Steenhuizen’s activities in the latter’s “dermoplastic workshop” as follows: “In order to stuff a body in such a manner that it becomes the counterpart of the once-living animal, a person must understand and feel the psyche of the animal; one must have use of an extensive collection of photographs, yes, almost every movement that the animal ever made in life must be captured in a shapshot.” Next to sketches, photography was seen as the most important aid to taxidermy.

Compared to his studies of the Amsterdam Zoo animals and to the material he used for his dioramas, the bird pictures of his early period are more striking. For a contest of the newspaper Algemeen Handelsblad (1902) he sent in fifty diapositive transparancies and won first prize. For a photo competition in Leipzig, Germany (1906) organized by the German publisher Voigtlander, he sent in seventy pictures of wild birds in their natural surroundings, and these too were awarded a first prize. With reference to this competition, forty bird pictures of Steenhuizen were published in the years 1908 and 1911 in the book Lebensbilder aus der Tierwelt (Live Pictures from the Animal World, H. Meerwarth and K. Soffel).

Visitors to the Amsterdam Zoological Museum could study Steenhuizen’s pictures right there, since the Museum had installed stereoscopic viewing cabinets with his series of transparencies.

In 1903, he published this collection of four sets of twelve stereo photographs, which could be ordered directly from him in either a Dutch or English language version.

These stereo photographs contributed greatly to the spreading of biological knowledge among a broad audience, something Jac. P. Thijsse, who had become friends with Steenhuizen since the early 1890’s, had also strived to achieve. Together they made various nature trips, among others with a sailboat along the shores of the Zuiderzee near Zeeburg, in those days still blessed with a great abundance of bird life. Steenhuizen was a member of various bird and nature associations, whose bird-loving members regularly congregated in his Artis workshop.

After 1910, Steenhuizen’s photographic activities diminished as he tried to improve his skills in the making of dioramas. His first project was a small bird pond, commonly called “the little marsh,” a scaled-down version of the Naarder lake. Here too, photography turned out to be an important aid and source of inspiration. Steenhuizen made several dioramas, of which the bird groupings for the Museum Fauna Neerlandica and the Heimans diorama (which opened in 1926) for the Zoological Museum are the best known. « less...

Place/date of birth

Leiden 1870 

Place/date of death

1940 

Nationality

Nederlands 

Discipline

fotograaf, tentoonstellingsmaker 

Subject

natuur, vogels, dieren
 

Product

 

Material

stereofotografie 

Collection is managed by

 

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Go to this photographer in RKD-Artists 

Latest editing

2011-04-06 (rvl) 

Places/periods of working

Amsterdam
Artis (Amsterdam)
 

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