Knitting at the beach: tourism and the photography of Dutch fabriculture

Abstract

This article considers the picturesque spectacle of knitting women dressed in attire, set against the background of the dunes in the Dutch province of Zeeland. Images of the knitting women at the beach were incorporated in the current visual repertory of the tourist press, including picture postcards. Taking its cue from a picture on knitters at the beach by the well-known modernist photographer Eva Besnyö, this article aims to show a pictorial tradition in which nationalist and tourist representations are linked to convey a Dutch Heimat idyll.