Ilse Bing
Untitled (Fashion, Paris)1933

On view:

Geffen Galleries, floor 1

Black and white photograph of two hats and a draped woven textile: a flat, circular coiled-cord hat overlapping a smooth dome-shaped hat, against a pale background, dated 1935

Artist or Maker: Ilse Bing
Germany, active United States, 1899–1998
Title: Untitled (Fashion, Paris)
Date Made: 1933
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 11 1/8 × 8 13/16 in. (28.2 × 22.38 cm) Primary support: 11 1/8 × 8 13/16 in. (28.2 × 22.38 cm) Secondary support: 16 7/16 × 13 5/8 in. (41.7 × 34.6 cm) Mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.64 cm)
Credit Line: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, gift of The Annenberg Foundation, acquired from Carol Vernon and Robert Turbin
Accession Number: M.2008.40.237
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: Ilse Bing was a pioneering German-born photographer renowned for her innovative approach to modernist photography and her mastery of the Leica camera, earning her the nickname “Queen of the Leica.” Born in Frankfurt, she studied mathematics and art history before taking up photography in the 1920s. Bing’s work blended sharp technical precision with experimental compositions, often exploring urban life, architecture, and the avant-garde aesthetics of Paris, where she lived and worked during the 1930s. This fashion photograph, likely made freelance for either Harper’s Bazaar or Vogue, dates to Bing’s interwar years in Paris. It is a study of texture, shape, and tone. The crocheted rings of a jaunty beret and the model’s bouclé top are set against the scumbled wall behind, creating a complete range from black through gray to white. The fragmentary glimpse of the model’s profile hints at Bing’s affinity for Surrealism and its transformation of the everyday into something more enigmatic.

Britt Salvesen

2024
Selected Bibliography: Salvesen, Britt. See the Light: Photography, Perception, Cognition: the Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2013.
Copyright: © Estate of Ilse Bing

Ilse Bing
Untitled (Fashion, Paris)1933

On view:

Geffen Galleries, floor 1

Artist or Maker: Ilse Bing
Germany, active United States, 1899–1998
Title: Untitled (Fashion, Paris)
Date Made: 1933
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: Image: 11 1/8 × 8 13/16 in. (28.2 × 22.38 cm) Primary support: 11 1/8 × 8 13/16 in. (28.2 × 22.38 cm) Secondary support: 16 7/16 × 13 5/8 in. (41.7 × 34.6 cm) Mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.64 cm)
Credit Line: The Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection, gift of The Annenberg Foundation, acquired from Carol Vernon and Robert Turbin
Accession Number: M.2008.40.237
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: Ilse Bing was a pioneering German-born photographer renowned for her innovative approach to modernist photography and her mastery of the Leica camera, earning her the nickname “Queen of the Leica.” Born in Frankfurt, she studied mathematics and art history before taking up photography in the 1920s. Bing’s work blended sharp technical precision with experimental compositions, often exploring urban life, architecture, and the avant-garde aesthetics of Paris, where she lived and worked during the 1930s. This fashion photograph, likely made freelance for either Harper’s Bazaar or Vogue, dates to Bing’s interwar years in Paris. It is a study of texture, shape, and tone. The crocheted rings of a jaunty beret and the model’s bouclé top are set against the scumbled wall behind, creating a complete range from black through gray to white. The fragmentary glimpse of the model’s profile hints at Bing’s affinity for Surrealism and its transformation of the everyday into something more enigmatic.

Britt Salvesen

2024
Selected Bibliography: Salvesen, Britt. See the Light: Photography, Perception, Cognition: the Marjorie and Leonard Vernon Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2013.