Paul Schuitema

Biography

Paul Schuitema is best known as a photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the pioneers of photo-montage in the Netherlands, and one of the main representatives of the ‘Nieuwe Zakelijkheid’ (‘New Objectivity’) movement in Dutch photography.

In the 1930s and 1940s, he also made several films. Schuitema was a self-taught filmmaker. His first official film, 1937’s De Maasbruggen, was a documentary about the Maas bridges in Rotterdam, and was followed by two other documentary films: De Markthallen van Parijs and De Bouwhoek van Harlingen.

After the war, Schuitema became a member of the Nederlandse Werkgemeenschap voor Filmproductie, a collaborative group of filmmakers that was founded in June of 1945. The NWF promoted the production of short documentaries about the Netherlands and its post-war reconstruction. In 1945, Schuitema made the film Arnhem for the NWF, about the ruined downtown area of Arnhem. Schuitema then made several films about the post-war Netherlands for Multifilm in Haarlem.