Ballet "L'Errante", Paris
1933
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 22.23 × 28.26 cm (8 3/4 × 11 1/8 in.) mount: 34.93 × 41.91 cm (13 3/4 × 16 1/2 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund
Accession Number
2019.68.1
Art Historical Context
Ilse Bing, often hailed as the "Queen of the Leica" for her masterful use of the compact mm camera, captured *Ballet "L'Errante", Paris* in 1933. A German-born photographer who flourished in Paris during the inter years, Bing was at the forefront of modernist photography, blending sharp realism with poetic abstraction. This gelatin silver print depicts a moment from the ballet *L'Errante* (The Wanderer), evoking the elegance and transience of dance amid the vibrant cultural scene of 1930s Paris, a hub for avant-garde arts. The medium of gelatin silver print, prized for its luminous tonal rang...
About the Artist
Ilse Bing
Ilse Bing, born on March 23, 1899, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, into a prosperous Jewish merchant family, grew up immersed in music and art. The daughter of Louis Bing and Johanna Elli Bing (née Katz), she pursued studies in mathematics and physics at the University of Frankfurt starting in 1920, later shifting to art history and architecture. A semester at Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Institut in...