The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of May 6, 2024
New York at Night
1936
(American, 1899–1998)
Image: 18.9 x 28.3 cm (7 7/16 x 11 1/8 in.); Mounted: 35.7 x 41.8 cm (14 1/16 x 16 7/16 in.); Paper: 18.9 x 28.3 cm (7 7/16 x 11 1/8 in.); Matted: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
Gift of George Stephanopoulos 2012.393
© Estate of Ilse Bing
Location: not on view
Description
In 1936 one of Ilse Bing’s patrons arranged for her to spend almost two months in New York City. In this daytime view of Manhattan’s skyscrapers shot from an elevated train platform, a self-portrait is hidden in the glass cover of the coin-operated scale. Bing also photographed the skyline by night, declaring the city’s lighting “phosphorescent.” The scale of the metropolis made her feel, she recalled, like “an atom wandering in the universe.” Bing and her work were enthusiastically received there. She had a solo exhibition of her photographs and met with magazine officials at Fortune, Time, and Life, which was then still in the conceptual stages. Despite possible employment, she returned to Paris to be with her fiancé, pianist and musicologist Konrad Wolff.- Ilse Bing: Queen of the Leica. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 7-October 11, 2020).
- {{cite web|title=New York at Night|url=false|author=Ilse Bing|year=1936|access-date=06 May 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2012.393