A selection from photographer Gon Buurman’s oeuvre

Gon Buurman (1939) first encountered photography at the age of forty during a holiday in France. She is now considered to be one of the Netherlands’ foremost documentarians of ‘second-wave feminism’. However, associating her exclusively with the women’s movement does not do her justice. For she viewed hundreds of people through her lens and made iconic portraits mostly of lesbian women. Her work has also been published in a variety of photography books.

Buurman achieved fame in the women’s movement with her 1987 publication Poseuses: Portraits of Women. This book includes many impressive portraits of lesbians.  

Her most recent publication The Life of Women (with a text by Anja Meulenbelt) was brought out in 2006. As Meulenbelt writes in this book: “Diversity plays an obvious role in Gon Buurman’s work. Not out of a sense of political correctness. But simply because these are the women of her life, the women she loves, that she’s friends with, who she was once or still is romantically involved with and is interested in.”

Up to a few years ago, Gon Buurman was still working intensively on assignments for various magazines and books and, of course, for people who wanted to be photographed by her.

The Intimate Eye is an exhibition at two locations – Atria and IHLIA – and comprises a total of more than 100 portraits and other photos. The institutes, curator Jan van Goor and Gon Buurman herself have sifted through thousands of photos to select the images that reflect her oeuvre, evoke the spirit of the time and highlight specific themes.

Visiting the exhibition

You can view Gon Buurman’s work up till 28 April:

• at Atria’s library, Vijzelstraat 20, Amsterdam
  Tuesday – Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• and at IHLIA, the OBA (Amsterdam Public Library) 6^th floor, Oosterdokskade 143, Amsterdam
  Daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

• Interview with Gon Buurman (YouTube)