Ilse Bing - Queen of the Leica

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I Love Film

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I was friends with her and her husband Konrad in the 1980's and early 1990's. I set up a stereo system for them in her apartment on the upper West Side. They were old time intellectuals, they had a huge, sprawling rent controlled apartment overlooking the Hudson River. It was crammed to the rafters with books, musical instruments, two Grand Pianos, paintings, art, framed photographs. A real old-world aerie you never see anymore.

She had a trunk under her bed with some of the rarest Leica equipment I have ever seen, worth perhaps millions now. EVERYTHING was mint in a fitted velvet case, and the trunk and case were manufactured by Leitz. I was not as knowledgeable about cameras then as I am now, but I still recognized unbelievably rare prototypes and odd stuff.

I tried to buy some but she would not hear of it. After she died, the trunk mysteriously vanished, maybe stolen by the building superintendent. Probably pawned or thrown out if he didn't find a buyer.

http://www.dieselpunks.org/profiles/blogs/queen-of-the-leica?xg_source=activity
 
thank you for posting such a great link and story, so much to learn from so many great people out there.
 
I have her book. I wanted to name ny dog Ilse after her. My girlfriend hated it and we settled on Emma.
 
thank you much for the link; i very much enjoyed the article.

as a redneck philistine, i have to ask out of ignorance: what are diesel punk and steam punk?
 
Ilse Bing is a great photographer and joins Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson (and Doisneau and Brassai and Man Ray... etc) as a favorite of mine from that time and place. Whoever wrote the copy for the page -- I Love, was it you? -- is a very good writer, excellent strong clear prose.
 
Steampunk is for people really into the late 19th / early 20th century milieu. Dieselpunk (think trains, first came steam, then....) is for people into the 20s and 30s (and, it seems, later too). Wear the styles, listen to the music, etc. Use the equipment. An absolute bible of Dieselpunk could be Corbusier's wonderful screed, Vers Une Architecture (which is translated Toward a New Architecture, you can get it in the US quite cheaply from Dover Publishing; simply Toward Architecture would have been closer to his intent). The book with a lively wit sums up and makes a fabulous historical argument for the entire Dieselpunk aesthetic as I can grasp it.
 
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