Ilse Bing

American, born Germany

1899, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
1998, New York, New York

“These prints are important in the history of photography.” —Ilse Bing.

Crowned “The Queen of Leica” for her 1929 adoption of this innovative new camera, photographer Ilse Bing places her work in the art historical canon. This short film brings us into Bing’s 1992 New York apartment as she carefully shows us images from her personal print collection, recounting the stories behind them. In 1992, filmmaker Antonia Lerch travelled from Germany to visit and interview Bing in her home for one month. Their conversations resulted in Ilse Bing 1899–1998, an hour-long documentary from which this film was edited.

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