Along with still-life compositions, cityscapes and fashion photography, one of the main areas of photographer Ilse Bing’s artistic oeuvre was the self-portrait. Mirrors and reflections were key elements of her work.

Ilse Bing took the photograph New York – The Elevated and Me during a trip to New York in 1936 for a solo exhibition of her works. The image shows the Manhattan skyline from an elevated subway station. The rails of the subway station run parallel to the roofs of the houses, with both elements pushing their way diagonally into the picture. They move towards the photographer’s reflection visible in the glass cover of a scale standing on the platform. In this way, the artist becomes part of the cityscape yet is still separate from it.

“The photograph New York—The Elevated and Me is emblematic of Ilse Bing’s fate as an emigrée,” wrote Theresia Ziehe, photography curator, in a blog entry published in 2015. “In projecting the interaction of a self-portrait and an urban environment it raises the questions: Who am I? Who or what defines my identity?” At the time she took the photograph, the photographer could not yet have known that in 1941, just a few years later, she would end up in New York after being forced to flee from France, her first country of refuge.

The reprint shown here was prepared while Ilse Bing’s works were being rediscovered in the 1980s. The photographer signed her name in the bottom right-hand corner but made a mistake when dating the photograph.

Further reading:
Schmalbach, Hilary (Hg.): Ilse Bing. Fotografien 1929-1956. [Ilse Bing. Photographs 1929-1956]. Aachen: Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum 1996