They are – classics of photography.
In this issue, we gathered two dozen of the most talented women photographers of the past century whose works made great contribution to development of world art photography.
Eve Arnold (1912-2012)
Eve Arnold — American photographer and photojournalist, the first woman member of Magnum Photos.
Eva was fascinated by this kind of creativity in 1946. The first steps in professional photography she did two years later in Harper’s Bazaar under the direction of his art Director Alexey Brodovitch. During his artistic career, Eva worked in China, South Africa, Russia and Afghanistan, filming a variety of subjects, events and portraits. Fame she received due to the shooting of Hollywood stars and political figures: Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Clark gable, Malcolm X, Jacqueline Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth II and others. Especially became famous for her series of portraits of Marilyn Monroe. Also see — Another passion in Marilyn’s life. Who would have thought?
In the postwar years, eve Arnold wore the unofficial title of the Grande Dame of photojournalism. It is considered one of the creators of the “Golden age of news photography, associated with such publications as Life and Look. These logs attracted the attention of not so much lyrics, how many artistic shots, made by such masters as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon parks, Robert Capa and others.
In 1980 at the Brooklyn Museum in new York held the first solo exhibition of images of eve Arnold, made in China. In 1995 she became a member of the Royal photographic society.
“Many of my stories were repeated. I was poor, and it was important for me to capture poverty. I was interested in politics, and I tried to understand how it affects our lives. Finally, I’m a woman, and I wanted to know more about the other women,” said Arnold in an interview.
Inge Morath (1923-2002)
The Inge morath from Austria was in 1953 a member of Magnum Photos and the second a female photographer trapped in this legendary Agency.
In total during his life, Inge has published about 30 monographs. She worked in different genres, shooting landscapes, portraits, architecture, reportings, but became famous primarily as a street photographer.
Inge became interested in the art of photography in the early 1950-ies, when I worked in post-war Vienna in a pair of photographer Ernst Haas. To their own work inspired by her viewing of the works of the great Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Inge traveled so much. She traveled to Europe, Africa, USA, South America and the middle East. “Strange thing to photograph… You just trust my eye, but I can not bare my soul,” said she once.
Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971)
American photographer and photojournalist, a pioneer of reportage direction, she became the first female photojournalist of Life magazine. In addition, she was the first Western photographers visited in the 1930s Soviet Union. It also can be called the first woman who was allowed to work on the front. During the Second world war, Margaret was filmed very active and was the only foreign photographer present in Moscow during the attack of Nazi Germany; later, she accompanied the American troops.
Her book “Dear Motherland, rest in peace” (Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly), in which Margaret showed all the horrors of war, gained international fame, and the autobiography “self-portrait” became a bestseller.
As noted by contemporaries, Margaret has always reveal an objective nature of the event and removed so that each frame reflected her attitude. Master a dynamic, journalistic essay, she was incredibly insightful and was able to transmit images in real emotions. As Margaret herself said, the camera was for her salvation, a barrier between her and reality. Today, her photographs are kept in historical museums and the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington.
Margaret Bourke-white died at the age of 67 years, for a long time problem Parkinson’s disease.
Lillian Bassman (1917-2012)
Lillian Bassman — American photographer and artist. She was born in new York in a family of Jewish immigrants.
In 1950-60-ies Lillian worked at Harper’s Bazaar as a fashion photographer and art Director, but soon decided to radically change his style and became interested in high-contrast black-and-white photography. This technique she started using in fashion shooting, which has gained considerable popularity.
Lillian was very interested in pictorial photography. Perhaps this explains the beauty and graphic quality of her work. She was known as an experimenter, who spared time to process frames, and tried to remove out-of-focus and long exposure photography.
Lillian Bassman often referred to as a photographer self-taught, which as she said was trying to “get rid of gravity.”
At the end of his career, Bassman discovered color abstract photography and have mastered photoshop.
Diane Arbus (1923-1971)
Diane Arbus is an American photographer known for his black-and-white square snapshots “of deviant personalities and misfits (dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, circus performers), as well as ordinary people that look ugly and irreale”. The catalog of her works, released by the magazine Aperture, is still one of the top-selling in the history of photography.
His career in photography Diana started with her husband Alan. In 1941 they visited the exhibition in the gallery of Alfred Stieglitz, where Diane first heard names like Matthew Brady, Timothy O’sullivan, Paul strand, bill Brandt, and eugène atget. Alan already had some experience in this area: during the Second world war, he graduated from the army courses photographers. The couple decided to try their own hand at photography. Their first joint work was a promotional shoot for the Department store, father of Diana.
In 1946, Diana and Alan opened his own shop Diane & Allan Arbus, where she became artistic Director, and he was a photographer. Very soon it began to receive orders of magazines Glamour, Seventeen, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, but it was not that interesting to young artists. In their own words, they “couldn’t stand the fashion world”.
Soon Diana began to work one and very quickly found his subject. She showed the world of those people, with which most of us looks away to the side. Dwarfs, giants, nudists gallery of the images displayed her impressive… Being very sensitive and susceptible person, Diana throughout her life suffered from depression, and in 1971 he committed suicide.
In 2004 a photograph of her Identical Twins was almost sold for half a million dollars.
Vivian Maier (1926-2009)
American Vivian Maier, who worked in the genre of street photography — one of the most mysterious photographers of the twentieth century.
First shots she did back in France at the turn of 1940-50-ies. In the US, Vivian began to photograph cityscapes and soon bought a Rolleiflex camera. In life she didn’t care about publishing my photos, most likely, viewing them as a hobby.
In the works of Vivian Maier reflected new York in the period from the 1950s to the 1980s. Through her works, viewers can see the streets of this city of those times. Mayer have a lot of images and photos. She almost did not publish his work, and at the end of his creative activity did not even show the film, and just stacked them.
Vivian Maier worked as a nanny, and her passion for photography knew almost no one. According to the testimony of those who knew her contemporaries, she was very humble, secretive and yet eccentric. So, being very tall, she wore a long dress and men’s shoes large size, which made her figure even bigger and more unusual.
In addition to the photo, Mayer was interested in the film and even took some plotless movies about the life of the city. In addition, she recorded interviews with people talking. All these works are still in the research phase.
An unexpected discovery of the name of this photographer’s world is indebted to John Maloof, who bought her pictures at auction for $ 400, not even knowing about the value of their purchase. He counted more than 100 000 negatives, which still parses and subsequently plans to publish. As the photos were many and their storage is difficult, some of the photos John had to sell to a collector Jeff Goldstein (Jeff Goldstein).
Lisette Model (1901-1983)
Lisette was born in Vienna of a good family, studied music from renowned composer, Schoenberg. After his father’s death, her family moved to Paris, where she earned a living singing. But very soon the music bored the girl, and she took up photography.
Lisette learned from the first wife of andré Kertész, andré Faces, and it’s the rule: “Never put off something you’re passionately not interested”.
The model is considered to be one of the founders of street photography, her look is always cruel.
To the disciples she said, “Take pictures of its guts!” By the way, the most famous of them, Diane Arbus and Bruce Weber, just managed to find your style, “removing the guts” and showing to the world what no one wants to see.
The urban environment was for Lisette main source of inspiration. In her portfolio we can see the reflection in the Windows of skyscrapers, crowds of people, portraits of the poor, the fading beauty of wealthy ladies. Prior to 1950, work Model were published in glossy magazines Look and Harper’s Bazaar, and in the postwar years this style was considered too hard and out of fashion.
Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976)
Imogen Cunningham — American photographer, known for her photographs of plants, Nudes and industry, one of the founders of the informal Association of California photographers “Group F64”, which included Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Willard van dyke and others.
Imogen Cunningham became one of the first women who dared to call photography my profession. Her career began in 1901 in the Studio of Edward Curtis in Seattle, where she printed the pictures. In 1909 Imogen went to Germany at the Higher technical school, and after his return opened in Seattle’s own portrait gallery, which quickly gained fame.
In 1906 Imogen really shocked the local crowd by posting his self-portrait in the Nude. Since then nudity has become her favorite genre, though not the only one. Many photos Imogen wore a scandalous nature.
In the early 1930-ies Cunningham entered in the “Group F64”, whose members claimed photography as a separate art form and highlighting it on photographic aesthetics. After some time she opened a new gallery and began teaching at the art Institute in San Francisco. In 1974 Imogen Cunningham published a retrospective monograph of his shots. She died in 1976, and has not completed his latest series “Life after 90 years.”
Francesca Woodman (1958-1981)
Francesca Woodman — American photographer, daughter of the painter and photographer George Woodman and artist-ceramide Betty Woodman.
Francesca started to take pictures since I was 13. She graduated from design school and often visited the Roman avant-garde bookshop-gallery “Maldoror”, where was held the first exhibition of her work. In 1981 in Philadelphia was printed a series of photos “a Few samples of the internal upset geometry,” remaining the only lifetime publication.
Francesca’s creativity is often called phantasmagorical and even insane. Very often she is present in my photographs. Mystical house with a fireplace, Windows and mirrors represents the unknown frightening world. In a sense, every photograph is an attempt to look at my own life as if from the outside and observing, to catch the elusive. According to researchers, creativity is especially noticeable Woodman was influenced by painting and photography of surrealism, self portraits, Remedios varo, Frida Kahlo, the works of Hans Bellmer and the American masters — Clarence John Laughlin and R. Y. Mityana.
Ilse Bing (1899-1998)
In the early 1920-ies Ilse Bing was collecting materials for a dissertation on the history of German architecture. She needed a camera, and soon she acquired a “Watering can” — at that time quite a new camera, which is still little used.
Having evaluated the compactness of the camera, ILSA was a lot to remove. Soon the level of her skill has grown so much that the work Bing began to be published in German periodicals. In 1930, despite the opposition of her family, she decided to become a professional photographer and moved to Paris.
In the late 1920’s-early 1930-ies Ilse Bing was almost the only professional photographer that uses short-format camera, but still so skillfully. That is what she was called “Queen of the Leica”. Ilse works equally well received, and the General public, and representatives of avant-garde European art. The pictures she has participated in European exhibitions alongside photographs by man ray, andré Kertész, lászló Moholy-Nagy and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
With the outbreak of the Second world war, Ilse Bing emigrated to the United States, was replaced by “Leica” on the large-format camera and soon gained fame as a talented portrait photographer.
