Ilse Bing was born into a comfortable Jewish family in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, on 23rd March in 1899. She studied art history and mathematics at the universities of Frankfurt and Vienna in the late 1920s. In order to finish her dissertation, she bought a Leica camera and taught herself photography; she fell in love with the art form and by 1930 she was living in Paris and working as a freelance photographer. Along with her assignments, she was also exhibiting her work in important shows and galleries. In the mid 30s Ilse Bing fled to America where she had to start anew. She found work as a photographer doing portraits, fashion studies and picture essays. She was never afraid to experiment and try new techniques and she did so throughout her career. She was one of the first to solely use a small format camera (Leica) in the 1930s and in 1948 she was one of the few using a Rollieflex 2 1/4-inch negative. She was among the first to use electronic flash, solarize her negatives, and to photograph extensively at night. Her work is in such collections as the San Francisco Museum of Fine Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Chicago Art Institute. She died in New York on 10th March, 1989. She was 98 years old.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 13:30:31 +0000
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