Images

Abstract

Images Robert van der Hilst (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Louise Gong visiting her grandmother in Shanghai, 2007. A reproduction of the Tuileries Garden in Paris hangs in the livingroom. Robert van der Hilst commented that many of the interiors he photographed had reproductions depicting Paris. [End Page iv] Robert van der Hilst Robert van der Hilst was born in Amsterdam in 1940. He left the Netherlands at age twenty to travel and photograph, and has worked on five continents, with long stays in Cuba, Canada, Latin America, Japan, and China; he now lives in Paris. Since the seventies, his photographs have appeared in such magazines as Geo, Paris-Match, Stern, Vogue, and Zoom. He has been featured in many exhibitions worldwide, and his work is held by major galleries, including the Pompidou. In 2002, he published Cuban Interiors, and in 2009 Shanghai 1990–1993. From 2005 to 2009, he worked on a project that became Chinese Interiors, published in 2010 by Shanghai Fine Art Publishing House, then by Gallimard and other European publishers. In these and other books, he acknowledged the influence of Dutch artists, especially Vermeer. "Rather than being one of those photographers taking snapshots of so-called reality, I aim to create my own reality," he said in 2010, in which the interiors may be as important as the human subjects, striving for "absolute silence." In 2012, Shanghai Fine Art Publishing House released his book Timeless World. Copyright © 2021 University of Hawai'i Press