Hendrik Kerstens did not formally train as an artist. However, he wished to devote himself to a more creative profession and in 1995, at the age of forty, he left the business world and took up photography. His wife Anna worked full time to support this change of direction. In a reversal of more traditional roles, Kerstens cared for their young daughter Paula, while also studying photography during the day. Becoming a father left a deep impression on Hendrik. Through photography he explored the accompanying feelings of responsibility, vulnerability and love he felt towards his daughter, starting with documentary family snapshots. As Paula grew physically and psychologically, Hendrik Kerstens searched for an artistic manifestation of these changes, leading to his interpretation of the great Dutch masters of the 17th century.
Paula Kerstens is now an art historian. In 2017, she graduated from KU Leuven with her master’s thesis on the relationship between nineteenth-century portrait photography and baroque painting. She gives lectures for cultural institutions at home and abroad and writes articles about the collaboration with her father for international art magazines and journals. She plays an active role in the realisation of exhibitions about their work.
Hendrik and Paula Kerstens were awarded the PANL award (2001) in the Netherlands; the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize (2008) at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Silver Lead Award, Portrait Photography of the Year (2010) in Germany and the 11th Lucie Award (2013). Hendrik and Paula Kerstens’ works and ideas were included in Alexander McQueen’s spectacular show The Horn of Plenty: Everything but the Kitchen Sink, a retrospective on 15 shocking years in fashion.