My Courtyard, New York
1952
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
overall: 50.5 x 34.2 cm (19 7/8 x 13 7/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ilse Bing Wolff
Accession Number
2001.147.72
Art Historical Context
Ilse Bing’s “My Courtyard, New York” offers an intimate view of mid-century urban life through the eyes of a photographer who had recently made the United States her home. Born in Germany and active in Paris during the 1930s, Bing brought her sharp modernist sensibility to New York after emigrating in 1940. By 1952, when this photograph was made, she had settled into the rhythms of the city, turning her lens on the quiet, personal spaces just outside her door. Printed as a gelatin silver photograph—a medium prized for its rich tonal range and crisp detail—the image measures roughly 50 by 34 c...
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...