Gijsbert Hanekroot (Brussels, 1945) started his career as a photographer of rock musicians in the late sixties. Back then, the rock scene was not quite the well-oiled machine it is today. Things still had to be invented: light installations, sound, promotion, organization, crowd control. This also applied to music journalism and photography. Almost every week, new groups were being discovered. Every single day, people were learning things and adapting them.Hanekroot’s development as a photographer essentially ran parallel to developments in the music scene. He travelled frequently and came face to face with the music icons of that period.
From 1970 to 1975 he was a photographer for the famous Dutch Music Magazine OOR, where he was succeeded by Anton Corbijn.
His photos can be divided into four categories: concert photos, studio photos, portraits and photos made at press conferences. Hanekroot stopped being a professional photographer in 1983 and became an entrepreneur. A few years ago he began to digitize his archives. This led to the publication of Abba…Zappa, Seventies Rock Photography (Veenman, 2008) and exhibitions in a.o. Paris, London, Moscow, Tokyo and Amsterdam. Nowadays Gijsbert Hanekroot works mainly as a documentary photographer.
In 2016 Gijsbert Hanekroot published a new book: “David Bowie – The Seventies” as a tribute to the passing away of this legandary artist in January of that year. He photographed the ‘Ziggy Stardust’ tour in 1973 at Earls Court in London. He made wonderful pictures of this memorable show with constant costume changes. In 1974, Bowie was in Hilversum for a shooting in the TopPop studio with the song ‘Rebel Rebel’. Not long after he received an Edison at the Amstel Hotel in Amsterdam during a festive press conference. Gijsbert also photographed the ‘Thin White Duke’ tour in 1976 at the concert in Ahoy Rotterdam and later the 1978 tour. In July / August 2016 a show with the same title as the book has been held in our gallery.
