People in a Cemetery, Paris
Photograph
1932 (made), after 1932 (printed)
1932 (made), after 1932 (printed)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Ilse Bing (1899–1998) was one of several leading women photographers in the inter-war period. Born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt, she initially pursued an academic career before moving to Paris in 1930 to concentrate on photography.
Paris presented a complex urban scene that was modern yet also worn and weathered. As with contemporary Surrealist townscapes, the past broke through. The clean planes and geometrical structures of the modern urban fabric cast light on the battered remains of an older place – the exhausted pomp of the Père Lachaise cemetery, or dark apartment blocks reflected in gutters. Her best images of Paris are informed by a chaotic layering of signs of disregarded culture, like the wasted potted plants in her study of a pavement or the abject torn posters on a wooden fence.
Paris presented a complex urban scene that was modern yet also worn and weathered. As with contemporary Surrealist townscapes, the past broke through. The clean planes and geometrical structures of the modern urban fabric cast light on the battered remains of an older place – the exhausted pomp of the Père Lachaise cemetery, or dark apartment blocks reflected in gutters. Her best images of Paris are informed by a chaotic layering of signs of disregarded culture, like the wasted potted plants in her study of a pavement or the abject torn posters on a wooden fence.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | People in a Cemetery, Paris (generic title) |
| Materials and techniques | Gelatin-silver print |
| Brief description | 'People in a cemetery, Paris', photograph by Ilse Bing (1899-1998), 1932 |
| Physical description | Black and white photograph of a group of people sitting on a bench in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris |
| Dimensions |
|
| Style | |
| Marks and inscriptions | 'Ilse Bing 1932' (Reverse, in pencil, in Bing's hand) |
| Credit line | Bequeathed by Ilse Bing Wolff |
| Subject depicted | |
| Place depicted | |
| Summary | Ilse Bing (1899–1998) was one of several leading women photographers in the inter-war period. Born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt, she initially pursued an academic career before moving to Paris in 1930 to concentrate on photography. Paris presented a complex urban scene that was modern yet also worn and weathered. As with contemporary Surrealist townscapes, the past broke through. The clean planes and geometrical structures of the modern urban fabric cast light on the battered remains of an older place – the exhausted pomp of the Père Lachaise cemetery, or dark apartment blocks reflected in gutters. Her best images of Paris are informed by a chaotic layering of signs of disregarded culture, like the wasted potted plants in her study of a pavement or the abject torn posters on a wooden fence. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.3023-2004 |
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| Record created | August 4, 2004 |
| Record URL |
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