thilly weissenborn (1889–1964) Thilly Weissenborn’s Lux Studio was located above Mr D.G. Mulder’s ‘NV Garoetsche Apotheek en Handelsonderneming’ (a pharmacy and trade association) in Garut. From 1920 she was in charge of a small group of Sundanese employees. A woman who was a photographer and an independent entrepreneur was an exception at the time. The youngest of six children, she was born in 1889 in Kediri, but her family moved to Europe in 1892. Thilly’s older sister Else studied photography in Paris and opened a photographic studio in The Hague in 1903. Thilly learned the initial tricks of the trade in Else’s studio. Thilly Weissenborn travelled to Java in 1913 and continued learning about photography in the studio of O. Kurkdjian & Co., in Surabaya, where, under the supervision of G.P. Lewis, she was originally responsible for retouching negatives. She slowly developed into a photographer with her own style that displayed artistic similarities with the work of this famous studio. Garut was situated in the mountainous landscape of West Java and, thanks to the cooler climate and beautiful location, was a popular and busy holiday destination. Thilly Weissenborn made portraits on commission in her studio, but she was also adept in documenting the much sought after and more commercial subjects such as buildings, companies and interiors. In her ‘free work’
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she concentrated on taking photographs of indigenous scenes, landscapes and photographs of ‘ethnic types’,29 which were extremely popular with publishers and tourists at the time. Weissenborn’s talents were not only in great demand in Priangan; she also received increasing numbers of commissions to take photographs elsewhere. She photographed Governor-General Fock’s visit to Garut, producing the beautiful album that is preserved in Tropenmuseum collection. Governor-General van Limburg Stirum asked her to photograph Buitenzorg Palace and the Cipanas Estate near Sindanglaya. Weissenborn compiled many albums with selections from her own work, also for private individuals who were leaving Garut or Priangan or who wanted to send an album to their families in the Netherlands. Weissenborn was interned in a number of different camps during the Second World War, but she managed to survive. The Japanese surrender was followed by the chaotic Bersiap period,30 and the havoc that befell Garut did not spare Weissenborn’s Lux Studio and it was destroyed. The Dutch soldier and amateur photographer W. Viallé rescued 48 glass negatives (13 x 18 and 18 x 24 cm) from the rubble; these are now in the Tropenmuseum collection. In 1956 Weissenborn returned to the Netherlands for good. After her death in 1964 the Tropenmuseum received an album from her
estate,31 which is generally understood to be an album of stock photographs from her studio. A substantial portion of her oeuvre is contained in this rather plain looking album. Clients and publishers probably browsed it before placing an order at Lux Studio. With the contents – 149 daylight gelatine silver prints – Weissenborn made an important contribution to creating an idealised romantic image of the former Dutch colony. It is immediately apparent that Weissenborn composed her idyllic images with extreme care, and in doing so her work continued a style that had earlier been developed by the Kurkdjian photographic studio. AM
17 Angklung performers, children and a pleasure boat at Bagendit Lake, Java Photographer: Thilly Weissenborn (1889–1964), Lux Studio gelatin printing-out paper 17.4 x 23.5 cm 1917–40 60002464. Gift: Mrs A.P. van Duyn and Mrs A. Hetterschijvan Duyn, 1963
PHOTOGR APHS OF THE NETH ERLAN D S EAST I ND I ES
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