Laundry, New York
1936
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
overall: 19.8 x 28.1 cm (7 13/16 x 11 1/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ilse Bing Wolff
Accession Number
2001.147.64
Art Historical Context
**Laundry, New York (1936) by Ilse Bing captures the gritty poetry of urban life during the Great Depression era. This gelatin silver print, a hallmark of early 20th-century photography depicts everyday laundry drying against New York's towering skyline—a poignant snapshot of immigrant neighborhoods and working-class resilience. Bing, a pioneering German-born photographer often called the "Queen of Leica," masterfully used her compact 35mm camera to seize spontaneous moments, blending European modernism with American street photography during her visits to the city. The medium's rich tonal ra...
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...