In de hoofdrol Chas Gerretsen

text Iris Sikking, Birgit Donker, Claudia Chamorro, Lucrecia Conget, Hedy van Erp, Francisco Estévez, Chas Gerretsen, Markha Valenta, Wilco Versteeg,

Together with the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Lecturis publishes In the Starring Chas Gerretsen . This monograph tells the extraordinary life story of Charles (Chas) Gerretsen (1943), an exceptional photographer. In addition to working as a war reporter in Asia, he also worked as a photographer in Hollywood, where he photographed the set of the film classic ‘Apocalypse Now’ and many film stars in their early years. The photography of Chas Gerretsen, whose life story reads like an exciting book, is still hardly known in the Netherlands. Growing up in Groningen, he quickly sought adventure as an eighteen-year-old.

The book is published on the occasion of the first retrospective exhibition of his oeuvre. The exhibition of the same name, Starring Chas Gerretsen, can be seen in the Nederlands Fotomuseum from October 15, 2021 to April 22, 2022. With this, the Nederlands Fotomuseum is realizing for the first time an exhibition and publication of a Collection Photographer who is still alive. His special archive was acquired in 1995 and in recent years work has been done on organizing the archive and digitizing it. A process to which Chas Gerretsen and his partner Monika Pfandzelter have made a very valuable contribution by sharing all the stories with us.

This book also tells the story of a journalist who knows how important it is for a reporter to be on the scene, even if it means putting yourself in dangerous situations. The latter applies in particular to journalists with a camera, who literally have to get close to the story. His oeuvre thus touches on important themes such as: is there such a thing as objective journalism? Should you take a stand as a photographer? Can a photo be to blame?

format 233 x 296 mm size 256 pages softcover with dust jacket design Kummer & Herrman released NUR 653 ISBN NL 978-94-6226-409-0 ISBN EN 978-94-6226-406-9 € 35,00 In addition to the 200 photos from the exhibition, the book also includes archival materials such as travel documents and letters. In addition, essays by curators of the Museo de la Memoria y Los Derechos Humanos in Santiago, Chile, among others, have been incorporated into the book.