Ruud Van
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Digital
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Photographic Paper
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
21st Century and Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
2010s Color Photography
Archival Pigment
2010s Color Photography
Photographic Paper
2010s Portrait Photography
Photographic Paper
2010s Color Photography
Archival Pigment
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
Archival Pigment
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Ruud Van For Sale on 1stDibs
How Much is a Ruud Van?
Ruud van Empel for sale on 1stDibs
Original Ruud van Empel photocollages and prints have a number of disquieting aspects to them. The Dutch artist has gained an international following that includes Elton John, who dedicated a song to him.
Van Empel’s wide-eyed children, both of African and of European descent, project an innocence reminiscent of storybook illustrations or even the kitschy big-eyed kids painted by Margaret Keane. They are often exquisitely dressed, in clothes that look stylish but slightly out of date. They frequently inhabit improbable settings — a lush forest setting, a moonlit desert or jungle — again reminiscent of fairy tales. But the unreality of these beguiling kids owes much to the process by which they were created.
They have been photoshopped into being through a patchwork of features manipulated on the computer. The settings they inhabit also come about through photocollage: The Guardian reported that van Empel wanders “through Dutch forests, in search of fine leaves, perfect branches, and the right waters. Only to tear it apart and spend weeks reconstructing it all until both the person and the setting match his desired standard of photorealism.”
Van Empel was born in the small town of Breda and studied at the local art academy before moving to Amsterdam to pursue a serious career as a fine-art photographer. The earliest series to attract critical interest, “The Office” (1995), depicted staid office workers amid improbable props, referencing early 20th-century photomontage. As he has matured as an artist over the past 25 years, however, he has mastered a kind of realism that is somewhere between magical and dangerous.
Find original Ruud van Empel photography on 1stDibs.
Finding the Right photography for You
Find a broad range of photography on 1stDibs today.
The first permanent image created by a camera — which materialized during the 1820s — is attributed to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. The French inventor was on to something for sure. Kodak introduced roll film in the 1880s, allowing photography to become more democratic, although cameras wouldn’t be universally accessible until several decades later.
Digital photographic techniques, software, smartphone cameras and social-networking platforms such as Instagram have made it even easier in the modern era for budding photographers to capture the world around them as well as disseminate their images far and wide.
What might leading figures of visual art such as Andy Warhol have done with these tools at their disposal?
Today, when we aren’t looking at the digital photos that inundate us on our phones, we look to the past to celebrate the photographers who have broken rules as well as records — provocative and prolific artists like Horst P. Horst, Lillian Bassman and Helmut Newton, who altered the face of fashion and portrait photography; visionary documentary photographers such as Gordon Parks, whose best-known work was guided by social justice; and pioneers of street photography such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, who shot for revolutionary travel magazines like Holiday with the likes of globetrotting society lensman Slim Aarons.
Find photographers you may not know in Introspective and The Study — where you’ll read about Berenice Abbott, who positioned herself atop skyscrapers for the perfect shot, or “conceptual artist-adventurer” Charles Lindsay, whose work combines scientific rigor with artistic expression, or Massimo Listri, known for his epic interiors of opulent Old World libraries. Photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron was given a Kodak camera as a child. Later, she shot on Polaroid film before buying her first 35mm camera in her teens. Barron's stunning portraits of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Warhol and other artists chronicle a crucial chapter of New York’s cultural history.
Throughout the past two centuries, photographers have used their medium to create expressive work that has resonated for generations. Shop a voluminous collection of this powerful fine photography on 1stDibs. Search by photographer to find the perfect piece for your living room wall, or spend some time with the work organized under various categories, such as landscape photography, nude photography and more.