Untitled, 1937

Known professionally as Yva (Else Ernestine Neuländer), the German photographer was one of the most influential figures in interwar fashion and portrait photography. Working from her Berlin studio, which she established in 1925, Yva developed a distinctive modern style that combined experimental techniques such as photograms and photo-collage with sophisticated images of the “New Woman,” presenting women as independent, cosmopolitan, and self-possessed. Her photographs appeared widely in leading German magazines, and she later became an important mentor to the young Helmut Newton. Despite her success, anti-Jewish Nazi legislation forced the closure of her studio and ended her career; she was deported and killed in 1942. Although much of her archive was lost during the war, Yva’s surviving photographs continue to testify to her pioneering contribution to modern photography and fashion imagery.

At the time of this writing, this is the only known print of this image. The name of the label affixed to the verso, AG Schostal, is that of a famous Viennese press photography agency active during the 1920s and 1930s.