Oscar van Alphen
Oscar van Alphen (1923-2010) was a photographer and writer. He published his first photobook in 1958 (Kinderen in de grote stad/Children in The Big City). He worked for newspapers during the sixties, mainly focusing on street events. From 1972-1979, a highly experimental period in the visual arts and the theatre scene, he provided a weekly theatre column for the magazine Vrij Nederland.
His 1978 publication Het Rijke Onvermogen (Prosperous Impotence) and his 1982 book on Palestine take a strong political position. After 1980 he starts to experiment with photographs and text, both on a formal as well as an intellectual level, leading to publications as Het Moment Voorbij (Beyond The Moment, 1982) and De slak op het grasveld (The Snail in The Meadow, 1991). The 1984-1985 audiovisual production De Oorlogen (The Wars, in 2006 complemented by an English soundtrack) can be considered his chef d’oeuvre.