Gerard (Gerrit Petrus) Fieret werd was born on January19,1924
in Den Haag and died January 22, 2009 in Den Haag.
In the seventies I was a member of the CABK (commonly refered
to as the BKR (beeldende kunstenaarsregeling - visual artists
scheme), the advisory committee for the employment of visual
artists in the city of Dordrecht, The Netherlands. We needed
an advisor for photography, which - as a technique - is also
used by artists. Toon winkel, who at that time taught painting
at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, proposed Gerard Fieret,
who was a typical artist/photographer. At that time there was
a lot of discussion whether photography was art or not - and,
more important - whether a photographer was an artist, or a
photographer. That subject has never been a problem for me,
but then it was important to know for some people - as if everyone
with a camera had to choose between the two.
Because the first artist with photography as his technique
applied for the BKR, we asked Gerard to join the committee,
which he did. His membership changed the meetings greatly -
in a positive sense. I was always looking forward to his company,
as he usually came with a small suitcase with photographs, poetry
which he had written (sometimes in the train on his way to the
meeting). In those days it was not possible to show what you
just photographed; we had to wait until the next meeting (if
he brought the recent ones that is). Also in the suitcase were
African ethnographic objects, which he had purchased from guys
from West Africa who were in that business, and cold chicken.
