I love coming across groundbreaking female artists from the past, it’s so refreshing and inspiring!
By 1921 Madame Yevonde had become a well-known and respected portrait photographer. In the early 1930s, Yevonde began experimenting with colour photography. The introduction of colour photography was not universally popular; indeed photographers and public alike were so used to black-and-white pictures that early reaction to the new process tended toward the hostile. Yevonde, however, was hugely enthusiastic about it and spent countless hours in her studio experimenting with how to get the best results.
Her use of color, subject matter, and style influence can still be seen today. The following are all from the 1930’s!
Isn’t she lovely? I want to make friends with her & lie around and read together!
Ashe Mischief
1 year ago
How inspirational! It’s so wonderful & intriguing to hear about a woman photographer making so many strides in the field and doing something so different.
bulaklak
1 year ago
Wow, these are amazing. I thought at first the top picture was Siouxsie. Yevonde was certainly ahead of her time not only in pushing the use of color, but of such rich, lush, saturated color and such tableaux of everyday fantasy…decades and decades before the likes of Pierre et Gilles and others of that ilk.
Emma
1 year ago
I love her! I’d never seen the toadstool, or the reading lady with the doggies before though…
verhext
1 year ago
Emma: I love the reading lady so much! I want her to exist now.
Sasha
1 year ago
you have effectively blown my mind this afternoon! i never would have guessed that these gorgeous, wonderfully strange works were from the 1930s… and by a woman artist on top of that. totally inspiring!!! (: Sasha
nika
1 year ago
i’ve loved madame yevonde since i was little! my dad brought home a book about her when i was 11 or 12 & i was instantly in love. i can’t believe that she actually created her own color process and had such a successful studio as a female of that time period! because i work at one of the more well known photography museums in the country, i had the chance to meet the man who is now the owner of her estate (and a distant relative). he was as charming as can be with a white beard, linen three-piece suit & an exceptionally stuffy english accent. & what a dear he was when i told him how much i adored her work… i have since then communicated with him once or twice by email– it was like the equivalent of meeting a favorite movie star! anyhow, thats my anecdote… yay madame yevonde.