Ilse Bing

Ilse Bing ( born March 23, 1899 in Frankfurt am Main, † 10 March 1998 in New York) was a German - American photographer.

Life

Ilse Bing was born into a wealthy Jewish merchant family in Frankfurt as a daughter of the businessman Louis Bing and his wife Johanna Elli Bing, nee Katz,. She took in 1920 to study mathematics and physics at the University of Frankfurt on, then turned to the history of art and spent the winter semester 1923/1924 at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Vienna.

Her photographic practice originated with the 1924/1925 recorded working on a dissertation about the architect Friedrich Gilly. For documentation purposes, they acquired a Voigtlander 9x12 cm camera. When she finished her studies in 1929 and the dissertation gave up, she turned entirely to photography, acquired a Leica ( camera) and worked fotojournalistisch. First reports published eg The Illustrated Journal, Frankfurt. In 1930 she was able to publish a documentary on the work by the architect Mart Stam retirement home in Frankfurt in the publication for the housing program New Frankfurt. They also maintained a close friendship with the photographer and filmmaker pair Ella Bergmann -Michel and Robert Michel.

Paris and New York Years

End of 1930, however, Ilse Bing moved to Paris and continued here continued their photographic work. She received orders report, among other things through the mediation of Hungarian journalist Henry Guttmann. She worked for VU, Le Monde Illustré, Le Document and Arts et Métiers Graphiques. In 1931 she exhibited her works in France and Germany. The outstanding quality of her prints was the photographer and critic Emmanuel Sougez Ilse Bing as describing "Queen of the Leica ". In addition to her work on photo essays Ilse Bing experimented during the year 1934 at the photo lab using the technique of solarization, regardless of the resulting parallel works of Man Ray.

After participating in a group exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in the year 1932 1936 Décoratifs in Paris' Musée des Arts Works by Ilse Bing was shown in the "International Exhibition of Contemporary Photography ". In 1937 she was a participant in the organized by Beaumont Newhall exhibition "Photography 1839-1937 " at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

After the invasion of German troops in France Bing in 1940 brought together with her husband, the German pianist and musicologist Konrad Wolff, whom she had married in Paris in 1937, to the internment camp de Gur. About Marseille two managed to escape and emigration to the United States. They settled in New York. In Paris, however, Ilse Bing had their most creative phase, here she felt rooted: " Rooted I 'm actually only in Paris [ ... ] When I walk on the streets of Paris, then I feel the contact. It is a lively contact with the ground, with the air. When I walk through the streets of Paris, then the past is alive. When I go here [ in New York] by the road and see old buildings, then [ ... ] always a distance. "

Photographic work

Ilse Bing photographed getting out of a very personal point of view, both in portrait as well as in countless architectural photography. It was heavily influenced by the style of André Kertész and Brassaï. Unusual perspectives, extreme camera angle or high magnification shape their subject. As Brassaï, they experimented with different lighting conditions, such as with photographs at night or in the rain.

In 1947 she undertook a trip to Germany and France, in 1951 and 1952 she visited Paris. She photographed at this time with a medium format camera ( Rolleiflex ). In 1957 she turned away from the black-and- white photography and focused on working with color negatives. In 1959 she gave up photography. He subsequently produced texts, collages and drawings.

Ilse Bing's work was rediscovered in the 1970s. In 1976 his first solo exhibition in the "The Witkin Gallery" instead, the Museum of Modern Art, initiated the publication of her photographs at Ikon Press, New York, under the title " Numbers in Images "; In 1982 "Women from the Cradle to Old Age."

Ilse Bing went from 1984 in the U.S. and Germany in many cases as a consultant for the development of modern art, especially photography, forth.

In 1990, she received the Women 's Caucus for Art Award, New York. In 1993, she was awarded another award, the " First Gold Medal Award for Photography " from the National Arts Club, New York.

Exhibitions (selection)

Literature (selection )

• Barrett, Nancy C.: Ilse Bing: Three Decades of photographer. Catalog New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, 1985, ISBN 0-89494-022-8
• Ilse Bing. Photographs 1929-1956. Catalog Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen 1996, ISBN 3-929203 -12- X
• A feast for the eyes - The myth of Paris - Re Soupault, Ilse Bing and Marianne Breslauer. In: Horns, Unda: Madame Man Ray: Photographer female avant-garde in Paris. Ed. Ebersbach, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-934703-36-4
• Three photographers: Ilse Bing, Grete Stern, Ellen Auerbach. Documentary, directed by. Lerch, Antonia, DVD 165 min, 1993, ISBN 978-3-89848-845-7 absolutely media, order Nr.845