Exhibition: 2000

The Belgian Stephan Vanfleteren thought he more or less knew the Dutch, the Belgian's close neighbours. But he was surprised by a country with a very varied population, which nevertheless seems very homogeneous. Vanfleteren made simple, straightforward close-up pictures: the portrayed always in the same pose, photographed with the same lighting and the same framing. Thus a sampling of the Dutch in one hundred black-and-white portraits came into being.

This is part of a series the Rijksmuseum's Dutch History Department organises in conjunction with the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad under the title “ Document the Netherlands ”.

Stephan Vanfleteren