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. She first experimented with solarisation in 1934 in Paris. Although working in the spirit of Surrealism, she later claimed that at the time she was unaware of Man Ray (1890-1976) and Lee Miller's (1907-1977) experiments with this technique. Solarisation happens when negatives are exposed to light in the darkroom during developing and printing, producing partly reversed images. Bing's experiments developed from an interest in light. As she explained, at the time 'light was considered the medium that permits photography. But for me it became the main subject: the protagonist of my photography'. The abstraction caused by solarisation creates an unusual effect - the hats float behind the abstract grid, taking on new and surreal qualities.