Ed Van Der ElskenDutch, 1925–1990The Quick and the Dead
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “The Quick and the Dead” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Chicago, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
The Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken arrived in Paris in the years following World War II and joined the circle of radical avant–gardes led by Marxist theorist Guy Debord. He meandered with his camera through the jazz bars, cafés, and restaurants of Saint–Germain–des–Prés, producing a series of photographs that captured the rebellious youth culture of that time, later published as the book Love on the Left Bank. Shot in quick succession, these two street views show police dispersing a crowd of demonstrators and employ an aerial perspective that contrasts starkly with the casual intimacy found in most of Elsken’s images. Yet they reflect a parallel concern with the state of postwar French society, which he indicted as “bourgeois, individualistic, decadent, rotten and deadly . . . with nothing to offer its young people.”
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Details
- Accession number
- 1957.204
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — © the artist or rights holder
