The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 15, 2025

Vertically oriented, black-and-white photograph depicting two people standing in a ship-shaped swing, captured at the moment the swing has swung out parallel to the ground. Facing each other, the two people crouch slightly, each gripping the flanking two of the four lines suspending the swing. The swing's lines run roughly parallel with an overhanging canopy and its stripes. In the background, trees are outlined against the sky.

The Swing, Paris Fair

1933

Ilse Bing

(American, 1899–1998)
America
gelatin silver print
Image: 28.3 x 22.3 cm (11 1/8 x 8 3/4 in.); Mounted: 41.9 x 34.9 cm (16 1/2 x 13 3/4 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2007.30
© Estate of Ilse Bing
Location: Not on view

Description

A couple enjoys one of the rides at a popular, historical Parisian street festival known as the Gingerbread Fair. Like Bing’s cancan photographs, the real subjects here are the sensations of motion and excitement.
  • Estate of the photographer, New York, NY
    (Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, NY)
    1999
    Paul Hertzmann, California
    2007
    David Raymond [b.1979], New York, NY
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E. Hinson, Ian Walker, and Lisa Kurzner. Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography : the David Raymond Collection in the Cleveland Museum of Art. 2014. cat. no. 119, p. 167
    Schaffner, Ingrid, Julien Levy, and Colin Westerbeck. Accommodations of Desire: Surrealist Works on Paper Collected by Julien Levy. Pasadena, Calif: Curatorial Assistance, Inc, 2004. p. 83
  • Ilse Bing: Queen of the Leica. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 6-October 11, 2020).
    Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 19, 2014-January 11, 2015).
    Accommodations of Desire: Surrealist Works on Paper Collected by Julien Levy. Palmer Museum of Art (September 14-December 5, 2004); McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, MA (January 16-March 27, 2005); Crocker Art Museum, Sacaramento, CA (July 9-September 11, 2005); Portland Museum of Art (January 1-March 19, 2006).
  • {{cite web|title=The Swing, Paris Fair|url=false|author=Ilse Bing|year=1933|access-date=15 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2007.30