Queer Places:
Prinsengracht 796, 1017 LH Amsterdam, Netherlands
Benno
Premsela (Amsterdam, 4 May 1920 – Amsterdam, 27 March 1997) was a Dutch
designer, visual artist and art collector. As designer he was active as
textile artist, industrial designer and interior designer.[1] An early
participant in COC, who joined up in 1947, the Jewish interior designer Benno
Premsela was one of only two members of his family to survive the Shoah. His
father, Benedictus Premsela (1889 – 1944), mother Rosalie Premsela-de Boers (1888 – 1944), sister, Elly Wessel-Premsela (1914 – 1944) and brother in law, Max Wessel
(1916–1944), all died at
Auschwitz. The other surviving member was his brother, Robert 'Boet' Premsela
(born 1915).
Premsela was born and raised in Amsterdam. He was the son of Benedictus Premsela, general practitioner and sexologist, en Rosalie de Boers.[2] After his secondary education he attended the Nieuwe Kunstschool (New Art School) from 1937 to 1940.[1]
From 1956 to 1973 he was head of display window decoration at De Bijenkorf. He joined the Amsterdam Council for the Arts, which he chaired from 1961 to 1970. In 1972 he became chairman of the board of directors of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.[1]
Premsela was also chairman of the COC Nederland and made an important contribution to the acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands.[1]
He served as a COC board member from 1953 to 1976, and for nine of those years
as the board’s chair. The Benno Premsela Prize initiated in 2000 was named after Premsela. in 2002 a new national institute for design was named after him as well, the Premsela Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion.
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