Once dubbed “Queen of the Leica,” Ilse Bing is among the foremost avant-garde photographers of the 20th century, whose portfolio of black-and-white and color prints encompasses scenes of urban architecture, street life, still lifes, portraits, commissioned photo essays, and advertisements—all shot with an eye for the unexpected detail, the unusual angle and vantage point, and a keen sense of composition and form. Trained as an art historian, she took up photography in 1929, and moved to Paris in 1930, where she embraced the radical approach of the New Photography movement, shooting scenes of urban life for her personal practice and on assignment for the top publications of the time. Her career was interrupted by the outbreak of WWII. In 1941, Bing moved to New York, where she eventually gave up photography to pursue poetry, drawing, and collage.