Zaida Ben-Yusuf
Zaida Ben-Yusuf , née Esther Zeghdda Ben Youseph Nathan (born November 21, 1869 in London , Great Britain , † September 27, 1933 in Brooklyn , USA ) was a portrait photographer based in New York and known for her artistic portraits of the rich, fashionable and known US citizens in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in London, she became a US citizen during her lifetime. In 1901, the Ladies Home Journal named her, along with five other women photographers, “the leading women photographers in America”. In 2008, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC put together an exhibition devoted solely to Ben-Yusuf's work, bringing her back to mind as a key figure in the early development of the fine art of photography.
Early life
Zaida Ben-Yusuf was the eldest daughter of of Berlin dating Anna child Ben-Nathan Youseph and the Algerian Mustapha Moussa Ben Youseph Nathan . In 1881 Anna Ben-Yusuf separated from her husband and lived with her four daughters Zaida, Heidi, Leila and Pearl in Ramsgate , where she worked as a governess . In the late 1880s , Anna Ben-Yusuf emigrated to the United States and opened a hatmaker's business on Washington Street in Boston in 1891 .
In 1895, Zaida Ben-Yusuf followed in her mother's footsteps and also emigrated to the USA, where she worked as a hatter at 251 Fifth Avenue in New York . Even after starting her career as a photographer, she continued to work in this profession for a while, writing several articles about hat making for Harpers Bazaar and the Ladies Home Journal .
Photographic work
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From 1896 onwards, Zaida Ben-Yusuf became increasingly known as a photographer. In April 1896 two of her photos appeared in Cosmopolitan Magazine , other selected pictures were part of a London exhibition put together by the Linked Ring . She traveled to Europe later that year and met George Davison , a co-founder of the Linked Ring , who encouraged her to continue her photographic work. From then on she took part in the annual exhibitions of the Linked Ring until 1902.
In the spring of 1897, Ben-Yusuf opened her portrait photo studio at 124 Fifth Avenue in New York. On November 7, 1897, an article appeared in the New York Tribune about her studio and her work in creating advertising posters, followed by another article on December 30 in Frank Leslie's Weekly . In 1898 she was able to further increase her fame as a photographer when ten of her photographs were shown at the 67th annual exhibition of the American Institute Fair and her portrait of actress Virginia Earle won third place: “She won a third bronze prize medal ( class I. Portraits) on a full length portrait of Miss Virginia Earle ”. In November 1898, Zaida exhibited their work together with Frances Benjamin Johnston at The Camera Club of New York .
In 1899 Zaida met F. Holland Day in Boston and was photographed by him. She moved her studio to 578 Fifth Avenue and participated in a number of exhibitions, including the second Philadelphia Photographic Salon . She has been reported in a large number of publications, including an article on female photographers in American Amateur Photographer and a long article in the Photographic Times in which Sadakichi Hartmann described her as an "interesting representative of portrait photography".
In 1900, Zaida and Johnston put together a joint exhibition on American women photographers for the World's Fair in Paris . Zaida contributed five portraits to this exhibition, which were subsequently shown in Saint Petersburg , Moscow and Washington, DC . Zaida's works were also shown for the Royal Photographic Society in London as part of the exhibition The New School of American Photography organized by F. Holland Day . Four of her portraits were selected by Alfred Stieglitz for the international exhibition in Glasgow .
In 1901, Zaida wrote an article entitled Celebrities Under the Camera for the Sunday Evening Post , in which she described her experiences with the people she portrayed. At this point she had already photographed Grover Cleveland , Franklin Roosevelt and Leonard Wood , among others . Another article of hers appeared in the September issue of New York's Metropolitan Magazine , entitled "The New Photography - What It Has Done and Is Doing for Modern Portraiture," in which she described her work as artistically, compared to most commercial photographers. but less radical than some of the better-known fine art photographers described. The Ladies Home Journal named Zaida one of the leading female photographers in America in November of that year. At the same time, she began a series of six illustrated articles on advanced photography for amateurs in the Saturday Evening Post .
Zaida Ben-Yusuf was listed as a member at the opening of the first American Photographic Salon in December 1904 , although her participation in exhibitions was already declining. In 1906 she exhibited a portrait in the third annual photography exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts . This is the latest known exhibition of her work during her lifetime.
to travel
In 1903 Zaida Ben-Yusuf traveled to Japan and visited the cities of Yokohama , Kobe , Nagasaki , Kyōto , where she also rented a house, as well as Tokyo and Nikkō . This journey forms the basis of a series of four illustrated articles entitled Japan Through My Camera published in the Saturday Evening Post from April 23, 1904 . In February 1905, her essay on Kyoto appeared in Booklovers Magazine , and Leslie's Monthly Magazine published an illustrated article on Women in Japan . She also wrote about Japanese architecture - among other things, in January 1906 the author Katharine Budd used some photos of Ben-Yusuf for her article in the Architectural Record . Ben-Yusuf also wrote an article for the magazine called The Period of Daikan , which appeared the following month.
In 1906 she published three photographs of a trip to Capri in the September issue of Photo Era and in 1908 wrote three essays on life in England for the Saturday Evening Post . She returned to New York in November 1908, but moved back to London the following year. She keeps the local telephone directory from 1911 as a photographer in Chelsea . In 1912 Sadakichi Hartmann wrote that Zaida had given up photography and was now living in Polynesia .
On September 15, Zaida Ben-Yusuf returned to the eruption of the course First World War and the German invasion in France back from Paris to New York. She applied for naturalization in 1919 , writing as a profession "photographer" and making herself ten years younger than she actually was. In the following years she traveled to Cuba (1920) and Jamaica (1921), among others .
Late life
In 1924, Ben-Yusuf took a job at Reed Fashion Service in New York City, teaching fashion topics in local department stores . In 1926 she was appointed style director of the Retail Millinery Association of New York , where she later rose to director . The census reports drawn up around 1930 show that Zaida had married the textile designer Frederick J. Norris . She died three years later at the Methodist Episcopal Hospital in Brooklyn .
Salvation from oblivion
The works of Zaida Ben-Yusuf were the exclusive subject of the exhibition Zaida Ben-Yusuf: New York Portrait Photographer at the Washington National Portrait Gallery from April 11 to September 1, 2008. The curator of the exhibition, Frank H. Goodyear III., said that he became aware of Ben-Yusuf when he more or less accidentally discovered two of her photographs in 2003, which showed Daniel Chester French and Everett Shinn . Then he wanted to learn more about a photographer who was almost forgotten.
Goodyear hypothesized that sexism may have caused Zaida Ben-Yusuf to receive so little attention, although her work contributed significantly to the development and establishment of photography as a medium for artistic expression. Up until then, the history of photography tended to focus more on male photographers like Stieglitz , although for a woman at the turn of the century the photography profession in New York was one of the few opportunities to pursue a socially respected career. Even in New York, a comparatively progressive city where innovations in the arts, science , journalism and politics were widespread, it was difficult for a woman to gain a foothold in a career and to support herself. Another reason for forgetting Ben-Yusuf's work is that she failed to hand over a large part of her work to a single institution during her lifetime. Her photographs are widely scattered and it is difficult to collect enough examples of her achievements and to classify and evaluate them appropriately historically. The exhibition at the Smithsonian presented the work of Ben-Yusuf to a wide audience and thus re-established her as a key figure in the history of artistic photography.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Ladies' home journal . sn, November 1901, ISSN 0023-7124 , OCLC 1624448 (English).
- ↑ a b c d e f Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery: Zaida Ben-Yusuf. Archived from the original on October 2, 2013 ; Retrieved September 20, 2011 (English, Ben-Yusuf chronology from 1901 to 1906).
- ^ Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery: Zaida Ben-Yusuf. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 3, 2014 ; Retrieved September 16, 2011 (English, chronology by Ben-Yusuf, introduction). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c Lauren Monsen: New Exhibition Resurrects Legacy of Groundbreaking Photographer. Ben-Yusuf produced memorable portraits that captured an era. In: America.gov. May 2, 2008, archived from the original on May 30, 2008 ; accessed on September 22, 2011 .
- ↑ a b c d Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery: Zaida Ben-Yusuf. Archived from the original on February 21, 2014 ; Retrieved September 18, 2011 (English, Ben-Yusuf chronology from 1869 to 1897).
- ↑ a b c d e Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery: Zaida Ben-Yusuf. Archived from the original on October 2, 2013 ; Retrieved September 18, 2011 (English, Ben-Yusuf chronology from 1898 to 1900).
- ^ Zaida Ben-Yusuf: Practical Lessons in Millinery . No. XIII - Lining Hats - Spring Hats - Bonnet Ties. In: Harpers Bazaar . tape 30 , no. 5 , January 30, 1897, ISSN 0017-7873 , OCLC 34163244 , p. 100 (English, online [accessed September 18, 2011]).
- ↑ The American amateur photographer . American Photographic Pub. Co., New York 1898, OCLC 7184737 , p. 457 (English).
- ^ A b c Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery: Zaida Ben-Yusuf. Archived from the original on October 2, 2013 ; Retrieved September 21, 2011 (English, Ben-Yusuf chronology from 1907 to 1933).
literature
- Frank H. Goodyear, National Portrait Gallery : Zaida Ben-Yusuf . New York portrait photographer. Merrell, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-85894-439-5 (English).
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ben-Yusuf, Zaida |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ben Youseph Nathan, Esther Zeghdda |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American photographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 21, 1869 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 27, 1933 |
| Place of death | Brooklyn |