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B+WIlsa Bing (1899-1998) took up
photography in the late 1920s
and quickly became known
as one of the leading female
figures from the inter-war period.
Famously, Bing adopted the new
technology of the time, the newly
released handheld Leica and
subsequently was often referred
to as the ‘Queen of the Leica’.out of their natural context so
that they appear as a series of
shapes and forms. Biermann
described how she was interested
in photographing living things,
stating how she saw them in
terms of their architectural
structures. These fascinating
still lifes are a stunning and
rather unique part of her
practice, highlighting her ability
to isolate an object to reveal
its natural beauty.B
iermann produced her
main body of work
between 1926 and 1933,
and along with her
focus on the still life she also
concentrated on the broad themes
of portraiture and landscape.
Many of her portraits are cropped
in tight around the face and she
often experimented with extremeclose-ups, sometimes just focusing
in on one facial feature, for
example the eyes or nose. Her
experimentation across all of these
themes was made possible due to
the technological advancements in
the photographic medium at the
time, for example portable
hand-held cameras allowed her to
move freely through the landscape
and capture images from different,
more flexible angles.
Biermann’s work was
associated with the movement of
New Objectivity or Neue
Sachlichkeit which emerged in
Germany following the end of the
First World War and continuingas a dominant aesthetic until- New Objectivity emerged
as a response to, and rejection of,
the sentimentality and idealism
of the previous generation and
instead sought to engage with the
world as clearly and precisely as
possible. Although the movement
ran across the mediums of
painting, architecture and
literature, these core ideas were
particularly suited to the
photographic medium due to the
camera’s ability to produce a
faithful recording of the world.
Although she was linked to the
movement of New Objectivity,
Biermann worked in relative
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‘She was interested in documenting her immediate
surroundings, focusing in on the light and shadow,
and shape and form, found in both the natural
and man-made world.’
isolation. Despite this, she
exhibited widely between the
years 1929 and 1932, often
alongside key figures from the
movement such as August Sander
and Albert Renger-Patzsch. She
had a solo exhibition at the
Kunstkabinett in Munich in 1929
and was included in several group
exhibitions, including the
seminal exhibition Film und
Photo in Stuttgart in 1929. The
exhibition included over 1,200
works and brought together
artists from all over the world
and was instrumental in showing
the influence and potential of the
photographic medium.
Sadly, Biermann died in 1933 at
only 35 years of age. Over her
short career she took around
3,000 negatives – however, only
around 400 vintage prints survive
today. For Tate, it is important to
collect vintage prints from the
early 20th century whenever
possible, and recently we were
fortunate enough to acquire a
small group of vintage works by
Biermann. Apparently, she
worked long into the night in her
darkroom in order to master her
printing technique and this can
be seen in the exceptional quality
of her prints. Without intending
to fetishise the idea of the vintage
print, it is a wonderful thing to see
these rare handmade objects up
close and, as a museum dedicated
to showing photography, it is
important for visitors to be able to
see these rare objects from a very
important moment in the history
of photography.48-50_A_MODERN_EYE_185 ER/MB.indd 5048-50_A_MODERN_EYE_185 ER/MB.indd 50 02/12/2015 11:0102/12/2015 11:01