Ilse Bing

(American/German, 1899–1998)

Ilse Bing was a leading American-German photojournalist and commercial photographer during the pre- and inter-War period in Paris. She is remembered for her pioneering photographic techniques, and for being among the first to use electronic flash, solarize her negatives, and photograph at night. Born on March 23, 1899 to a Jewish family, she went on to study at universities in Frankfurt and Vienna. She purchased a Leica camera as a student, and though she was entirely self-taught, she achieved rapid recognition as a professional and artistic photographer with commissions from prominent publications such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar —earning her the moniker “Queen of the Leica.” She moved to Paris in 1930, where her work was exhibited alongside contemporaries such as André Kértesz, Brassaï, and Man Ray. Bing’s work was included in the seminal 1937 exhibition "Photography 1839–1937" at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, following an inclusion the previous year in the Louvre's first modern photography exhibition. After Paris was captured during the Second World War, the Jewish photographer was sent to an internment camp in the South of France. In 1941, Bing swiftly emigrated to the United States, where she continued to produce an ever-evolving body of work until her death on March 10, 1998 in New York, NY.