Ilse Bing
Avenue du Maine, Paris

Avenue du Maine, Paris

© Estate of Ilse Bing Wolff

Avenue du Maine, Paris
Avenue du Maine, Paris
ArtistAmerican, born Germany, 1899–1998
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Avenue du Maine, Paris
Date1932
Place depictedParis, France
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 7 1/4 × 11 1/16 in. (18.4 × 28.1 cm)
Sheet: 7 1/4 × 11 1/16 in. (18.4 × 28.1 cm)
Mount: 11 × 14 in. (27.9 × 35.6 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund, The Manfred Heiting Collection
Object number2002.232
Not on view

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Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

Ilse Bing began taking architectural photographs as part
of a research project for her Ph.D. dissertation in art history at the
University of Frankfurt. In the spring of 1929, she purchased one of the newly
marketed Leicas, which were made at the Leitz factory outside Frankfurt (the
name Leica combines “Leitz” and “camera”). She soon gave up her academic
studies for a career as a photographer and moved to Paris in the fall of 1930,
settling into an apartment on the Avenue du Maine in Montparnasse. This view
from above looks at the underlying geometries of the avenue, especially the
parallel lines of streetcar tracks and long shadows cast by a row of trees and
passersby. Bing said that her fundamental interest was “the apparition of
people and things” in such elusive moments when forms snap into an unexpected
harmony.




Provenance[Manfred Heiting, Malibu, California]; purchased by MFAH, 2002.
Exhibition HistoryExhibited in "Paris Photographs from the Manfred Heiting Collection" at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, July 17-October 6, 2002.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Signed in black ink, recto, lower left over image: ILSE BING // 1932
Inscribed in pencil, verso of mount, bottom right: 29 [circled] // Paris in the 30s // Avenue du Maine // (People and shadows) // 1932
Inscribed, verso of mount, lower right edge reading vertically: TS7
Signed in black ink, recto, lower left over image: ILSE BING // 1932

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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