Paris, last Bastille Day before the War
Photograph
1939 (photographed), 1993 (printed)
1939 (photographed), 1993 (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. In the early 1930s Bing had been a prolific photographer, well-known for her modernist, journalistic city scenes.
In 1937 she married the pianist and musicologist Konrad Wolff. This image, taken two years later, is tinged with a foreboding of sadness and memory. The year that Bing took this photograph, 1939, she and her husband were interned in separate camps in the South of France as enemy aliens, and in 1941 emigrated to New York. The sense of ominous foreboding is present in this cloudy cityscape. To add to the poignancy it was taken on Bastille Day, usually a national day of celebration in France.
In 1937 she married the pianist and musicologist Konrad Wolff. This image, taken two years later, is tinged with a foreboding of sadness and memory. The year that Bing took this photograph, 1939, she and her husband were interned in separate camps in the South of France as enemy aliens, and in 1941 emigrated to New York. The sense of ominous foreboding is present in this cloudy cityscape. To add to the poignancy it was taken on Bastille Day, usually a national day of celebration in France.
Object details
Category | |
Object type | |
Title | Paris, last Bastille Day before the War (assigned by artist) |
Materials and techniques | Gelatin-silver print |
Brief description | 'Paris, last Bastille Day before the War', photograph by Ilse Bing (1899-1998), 1939, printed later |
Physical description | Black and white photograph of the Paris skyline on the last Bastille day before the second World War |
Dimensions |
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Marks and inscriptions |
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Credit line | Bequeathed by Ilse Bing Wolff |
Subjects 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. In the early 1930s Bing had been a prolific photographer, well-known for her modernist, journalistic city scenes. In 1937 she married the pianist and musicologist Konrad Wolff. This image, taken two years later, is tinged with a foreboding of sadness and memory. The year that Bing took this photograph, 1939, she and her husband were interned in separate camps in the South of France as enemy aliens, and in 1941 emigrated to New York. The sense of ominous foreboding is present in this cloudy cityscape. To add to the poignancy it was taken on Bastille Day, usually a national day of celebration in France. |
Collection | |
Accession number | E.3074-2004 |
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Record created | October 13, 2005 |
Record URL |
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