Books on Books #13
Ed van der Elsken: Sweet Life
Ed van der Elsken’s Sweet Life published in 1966 is considered one of the key works in the photobook history of the Netherlands. In 1960, armed with two magazine commissions and a stipend from Dutch television, Ed van der Elsken and his wife Gerda set off on a fourteen month journey around the world. Six years after their return, Elsken published his travelogue which exhibited a panoply of layout effects – double-page bleeds, crops, printed in deep gravure, and different cover for each of the countries in which it was published. Books on Books #13 presents a study of this legendary Dutch photobook with a contemporary essay by Frits Gierstberg.