Les extravagantes

Leendert Blok (1895-1986) became interested in the photographic medium at a very young age, initiated by an uncle, himself amateur. He spent his childhood summers at his uncle’s house in Dombourg, where a community of artists lived. After studying photojournalism in Pretoria, South Africa, Blok opened the Foto Technischbureau studio in his hometown of Lisse.

He is passionate about the emergence of new techniques and practices panoramic formats. His main clients are horticulturists and bulb growers in the neighbouring regions of Haarlem and Sassenheim. Quickly, he specializes in the realization of their sales catalogs and develops his own methods of color photography. He begins by practicing the technique of autochrome, from 1925 to 1930, which allows to reproduce a color image. The obtained image is unique, not duplicable. Lendeert Blok then moves on to the Spectracolor technique.

The archives of Leendert Blok are kept at the Spaarnestad Photo in The Hague, the Netherlands, and were rediscovered by the historian of photography Frido Troost (1960-2013).