Casparus Bernardus Oorthuys (1908 –1975), known as Cas
Oorthuys, was a Dutch photographer and designer active from the 1930s until the
1970s.
In 1930 Oorthuys joined the municipality of Amsterdam as a
structural engineer. In 1932 he, with many others, lost his job as a result of
the economic crisis. Unemployed, he came into contact with the Communist Party
of Holland, which he joined.In 1936 he became a permanent photographer at De
Arbeiderspers. He produced photography and graphics for communist and
anti-fascist organisations; and in the tradition of "workers'
photography" he documented poverty, police violence, the unemployed,
homeless people and evictions for magazines.
During the war, Oorthuys helped forge identity papers and
photographed clandestinely for De Ondergedoken Camera (the Underground Camera)
to document the activities of the German occupiers, and also the awful
Hongerwinter, the Dutch famine of 1944–45. During the postwar recovery, he
recorded the Nuremberg war crimes trials and the rebuilding of his homeland.
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