Co Rentmeester
Jakobus Willem "Co" Rentmeester (also Ko Rentmeester; born February 28, 1936 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch rower. He later became a photojournalist and covered the Vietnam war among other newsworthy events.
Life and career
Rentmeester competed for the Netherlands at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. In the 1960s he moved to the United States and studied photography at the Art Center College in Los Angeles.
After receiving his Bachelor of Arts, Rentmeester started his career as a freelance photographer in 1965 for Life Magazine.[1] He first covered the Watts Riots in Los Angeles, documenting many of the dramatic events, which earned him his first accolades as a photographer.
Between 1966 and 1969 Rentmeester was in Asia, where he particularly covered the Vietnam war. One of his pictures showed the commander of an M48 Patton looking through his lens. It was selected as World Press Photo of the Year and notably it was the first color photograph to win the award.
After Rentmeester was wounded by a Vietcong sniper near Saigon, he returned to the U.S. In 1972, his pictures from a travel through Indonesia were shown in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
In the following years, Rentmeester worked for several magazines as a photojournalist and as an advertising photographer.
Awards
- 1967: World Press Photo of the Year, 1st prize
- 1972: World Press Photo, 1st prize in category Sports
- 1976: New York Art Directors Club award for his photo essay on Thomas Jefferson
- 1979: World Press Photo: 2nd prize in category Color picture stories
- 1980: Missouri School of Journalism, award for an essay on the U.S. Air Force
- 2001: KLM Paul Huf Award
Publications
- "Three Faces of Indonesia," 1974, Thames & Hudson Ltd.
- "Holland on Ice," 1998, First Edition.
- 'FOOTPRINTS" Co Rentmeester 2012, Uitgeverij de Kunst, Weesp, The Netherlands
External links
- Official Website Co-Rentmeester.com
- Ko Rentmeester at Sports Reference
- Co Rentmeester at worldpressphoto.org
- Co Rentmeester: Oarsman And Photographer