February 15, 1935 – May 26, 2024, was a Dutch photographer known for her intimate, diaristic approach to documentary photography and for long-term projects grounded in personal encounters and travel.

After studying French and German language and literature at the University of Leiden, Bertien van Manen began her career in the mid-1970s as a fashion photographer. Inspired by Robert Frank’s The Americans, she soon shifted toward a documentary practice, traveling extensively and photographing everyday life as she encountered it. Working deliberately with simple snapshot cameras, she sought to dissolve distance between herself and her subjects, allowing her presence to be perceived as that of a visitor or friend rather than a professional observer.

Van Manen developed her work primarily through long-running projects, often made over many years. Major photobooks include A Hundred Summers, A Hundred Winters (1991), documenting post-Soviet societies; East Wind, West Wind(2001), focusing on China; Give Me Your Image (2006), centered on Europe; Moonshine (2014), portraying families in the Appalachian Mountains; and Beyond Maps and Atlases (2016), made in Ireland. Later books include Let’s Sit Down Before We Go (2011) and I Will Be Wolf (2017), both published by MACK.

Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Maison européenne de la photographie in Paris, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Fotomuseum Winterthur, and is held in major public collections. Van Manen’s photographs are widely regarded for their quiet intensity, emotional openness, and significant contribution to the contemporary photobook.

Reference
Biography text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), English edition. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertien_van_Manen