Exhibit: Ilse Bing Between Paris and New York at the Chrysler Museum (Norfolk)

In 1930, German Jewish photographer Ilse Bing (1899–1998) moved to Paris, joining a cosmopolitan group of artists bent on capturing the city in all its complexity. Working across genres, including photojournalism, fashion photography, and portraiture, Bing’s camera of choice was the lightweight Leica–the first 35mm camera to be mass-produced–which enabled her to explore Paris from new and unusual angles. By 1931, photographer and critic Emmanuel Sougez dubbed her “Queen of the Leica.”

In the summer of 1936, Bing visited New York and turned her camera on the city’s iconic sights, from the newly constructed Chrysler Building to the performers at Madison Square Garden. She returned to France invigorated, but her time there was cut short. With the Nazi invasion in 1940, Bing was sent to an internment camp. Through her art world connections, she secured safe passage to the United States, returning to New York in 1941 as a refugee.

Drawn from the Chrysler Museum’s substantial holdings of Bing’s art, Ilse Bing Between Paris and New York features Bing’s photographs from the 1930s alongside those of her friends and contemporaries, including André Kertész, Brassaï, Man Ray, and Berenice Abbott. Moving between two iconic cities, the exhibition invites visitors to experience how Bing captured the architecture, energy, and rhythms of modern urban life.