by Suzanne Révy
The New Woman Behind the Camera, curated and edited by Andrea Nelson, Associate Curator of Photographs, National Gallery of Art and Mia Fineman, Curator of Photographs, Metropolitan Museum of Art, sets out to define the modernist movement from the 1920’s to the 1950’s and highlight the contributions of an international cast of notable women photographers whose work during that era has been overlooked. Along with five other photography scholars and curators, Nelson and Fineman’s essays offer context for a variety of photographic practices, reframing the prevailing oeuvre by broadening the scope of historic inquiry. The exhibition will open this summer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and this fall at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
Cover of The New Woman Bhind the Camera edited and curated by Andrea Nelson and Mia Fineman, features a detail Alma Lavenson’s “Self-Portrait” (1932) published by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 2020 (Lavenson picture courtesy of The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Robert B. Menschel and the Vital Projects Fund, Diana and Mallory Walker Fund, New Century Fund, and the Eugene L and Marie-Louise Garbáty Fund)
“Untitled, Yasue Yamamoto as Okichi in ‘Elegy for a Woman’ by Yuzo Yamamoton” c. 1943-44, five gelatin silver prints by Eiko Yamazawa, from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera. (Tomoka Aya, The Third Gallery Aya)
“Diana Wynyard” 1937 by Dorothy Wilding, chlorobromide print on tissue and card mount, from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera. (National Portrait Gallery, London)
The breadth of work presented in this catalog is a reflection of the tumultuous times between the nineteen twenties and fifties. After the violence of WWI and the pandemic of 1918, women had earned the right to vote and began the hard work of realizing independence and agency. An introductory essay defines the phenomenon of the “New Woman” whose shortened skirts and cropped hair ushered in an era of increased freedoms. Essays that follow offer examples of women who worked in studios, journalism and fine art. Andrea Nelson writes about the popularity of studio photography, highlighting a striking series of portraits made of a Japanese actress by Eiko Yamazawa (1943) and Dorothy Wilding’s thoughtful and quietly posed portrait of Diana Wynyard (1937). A broad selection of studio portraits from Europe and the Middle East demonstrate how women flourished in this commercial realm.
(Left) “New York” c. 1942, gelatin silver print by Helen Levitt (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC gift of William H. Levitt) and (right) “Boy Smoking” 1939, gelatin silver print by Sandra Weiner (Courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation) from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera.
“Los Gorrones (The Freeloaders)” c. 1955 by Lola Alvarez Bravo, gelatin silver print from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera (Daniel Greenburg and Susan Steinhauser)
Elizabeth Cronin writes about photographing children, a subject to which many women were understandably inclined, but which was often dismissed as trifling and cliché. Cronin points to women whose modernist style resisted the romantic visual tropes of 19th century childhood. The confident swagger captured in Sandra Weiner’s Boy Smoking (1939) and Lola Alvarez Bravo’s group of boys caught in a playful game of peak-a-boo with the photographer in The Freeloaders (1955) allow us to witness the genuine perils and pleasures of growing children.
“Sin titulo (Milicianos en una trinchera/ Militiamen in a trench)” 1937-8 by Kati Horna, gelatin silver print from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, R.K. Mellon Family Foundation)
“The Ashes of Mahatma Gandhi Being Carried in a Procession, Allahabad” February 1948 by Homai Vyarawalla, gelatin silver print, from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera (Homai Vyarawalla Archive/The Alkazi Collection of Photography)
Photographs by Margaret Bourke-White (bottom two images on right) as they appear with photographs by George Rodger in Life, May 7, 1945, from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera. (Private Collection)
Kristen Gresh introduces readers to the women of the picture press. Significantly, she includes not only those who worked in the field but the photography editors whose names appeared somewhat lower on the mastheads of the great picture magazines, and whose visions helped shape the selections and sequences published in their pages. She goes on to highlight four international photojournalists: Russian Elizaveta Ignatovich, who belonged to a collective of designers, publishers and photographers who investigated industry under Stalin; Hungarian Kati Horna, who covered the Spanish Civil War; Indian Homai Vyarawalla, who photographed Indian independence protests for magazines in India and the U.S.; and American Margaret Bourke-White, whose picture of a dam graced the first issue of Life.
“Femme avec coiffure ouvragée en forme d’entail, Fouta-Djalon, Guinée/Woman with Fan-Shaped Hairstyle, Fouta Djallon, Guinea) 1939 gelatin silver print by Denise Bellon from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Purchased as a gift of the Gallery Girls)
Kim Sichel tackles the highly charged practice of ethnographic photography. Sichel uses the microcosm of European photographers in Africa to describe the frequent objectification of their subjects. During an assignment to western Africa to photograph urban centers and Berber culture, Denise Bellon reduced one female figure’s hairstyle to a graphic study of light and texture. Such work reflected the dominant colonialist attitudes of the day. Sichel includes further examples of anthropological uses of photography in the early 20th century. All raise questions about picturing the “the other” in relation to economic, political and societal agendas that provoked many unsettling conflicts that still reverberate today.
“Nu (Nude)” 1929 silver gelatin print by Yvonne Chevalier from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund)
“Sans titre (Étude de nu)/Untitled, Nude Study” 1939 by Laure Albin Guillot, gelatin silver print, from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell 1987)
The final two essays focus on the body. Elizabeth Otto turns our attention to the nude, athletics and dance, while Mila Ganeva writes about fashion. From abstract studies of form, such as Yvonne Chevalier’s Nu/Nude (1929) to the erotic studies of the male figure by Laure Albin Guillot (1930’s) to the problematic pictures of athletes by Leni Riefenstahl (1936) to the dynamism of dance as photographed by Charlotte Rudolph and Barbara Morgan (1920’s and 30’s), this chapter celebrates the growing pleasure of unrestricted movement and new concepts of beauty. Ganeva’s look at the Berlin fashion scene includes well-known practitioners Ilsa Bing and Lotte Jacobi who, like hundreds of other women, found economic, cultural and expressive means in lens-based media. Berlin rivaled both Paris and New York as a fashion center in the 1920’s and 30’s and boasted far more women working in the field, such as the prolific Madame d’Ora and Yva (Elsa Neuländer), who was tragically murdered in a concentration camp. Though its status as a beacon of fashion was short-lived due to the rise of fascism, the influence of these experimental, commercial and fashion photographers reverberated in the images made during the forties and fifties by photographers such as Louise Dahl-Wolf and Lillian Bassman.
“Mariette Pachhafer (later Mariette Lydis)” c. 1921 by Madame d’Ora, gelatin silver print from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera (National Gallery of Art, Robert B. Menschel and the Vital Projects Fund and the R.K. Mellon Family Foundation)
“Ohne Titel (Modefotografie)/Untitled Fashion Photograph) c. 1930 by Yva from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera (Berlinische Galerie- Landesmuseum für Monderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur)
“Translucent Hat” c. 1950 by Lillian Bassman, gelatin silver print from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Renee Harbers Liddel Fund and Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund)
The New Woman Behind the Camera is an opening shot at adjusting the photographic canon. Although it is by no means a comprehensive history, it casts a wide net by focusing on significant women photographers across the globe who worked in a broad range of fields. These essays and images are particularly gratifying in illuminating how the modernist movement led to a growing sense of confidence and independence for women through the first half of the twentieth century. At last, the credit they deserve!
(Feature Image) “Selbstporträt mit Leica/Self-portrait with Leica” 1931 by Ilsa Bing, gelatin silver print, from the book The New Woman Behind the Camera (Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg)
The New Woman Behind the Camera
By Andrea Nelson and Mia Fineman with essays by Elizabeth Cronin, Kristen Gresh, Kim Sichel, Elizabeth Otto and Mila Ganeva. Published by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 2020
The New Woman Behind the Camera will be on view this summer and fall in the following museums:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, June 29, 2021 through October 3rd, 2021
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2021/new-woman-behind-the-camera
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, October 31, 2021 through January 30, 2022
https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2021/new-woman-behind-camera.html
To purchase the catalog:
https://shop.nga.gov/756903/the-new-woman-behind-the-camera
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