YVA

Often forgotten, and unknown the fashion photographer of 1920s Berlin, Yva and her singular vision would go on to influence the likes of Guy Bourdin, Ellen Von Unwerth, and of course her apprentice Helmut Newton.

Her real name was Else Neulander, she was of Jewish origin. Born in 1900 and the youngest of nine children, she became fatherless from the age of 12, her mother left to support and fend for the family by becomin a milliner. Most likely this instilled an ambitious nature in the young Yva, and after some photographic training her work was shown in a touring exhibition entitled
'Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918-1945'.

In 1925 she bagan to work alongside the artist Heinz Hajek-Halke and would go on to incorporate his paintings in her photographs, as in the double exposure/ self-portrait above.

Yva had a talent for blurring the boundaries of photography. Sadly enough her archives were lost and only single images in public musuems/ collections remain.