Gregor Krause

Gregor Krause

Gregor Krause (6 March 1883 – 25 August 1959) was a German physician (GP) and amateur photographer, active in Indonesia in the first decades of the 20th century. He published two photographic books: Insel Bali (1920), reprinted in 1922 and 1926. A French edition appeared in 1930. The portfolio Borneo was published in 1926. Krause provided extensive texts to accompany his photographs and over twenty illustrated articles on Bali and Borneo in the Dutch magazine Nederlandsch-Indië Oud & Nieuw as well as articles in Eigen Haard a popular Dutch illustrated magazine and other magazines. Krause became internationally famous because of his photobooks on Bali. His pictures showed an enchanted nature, a pristine island and a harmonious way of life, in which religion and art were an integral part of daily life. The first edition of his photobook Insel Bali consisted of two parts, containing pictures of the countryside, farming life, markets, religious festivals, dances and cremation ceremonies. The Bali books had extensive informative texts by Krause. Both his pictures of Balinese nudes, women and men bathing, and of cremation ceremonies, attracted attention. For the 1910s-20s Krause was ahead of his time as a modern documentary photographer, photojournalist and in his environmental concerns. His vibrant and sequential images were taken within living communities and recorded unstaged ceremonies. The exotic content attracted more attention than his reports on customs and culture. The books initially served more as an impetus for tourism to Bali than for further ethnographic study. The Borneo portfolio in three folders shows 36 sequential images of monkeys that are like portraits, and atmospheric pictures of the lush tidal forest of Borneo.

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High Museum of Art.

Gregor Krause

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