Background
Use Bing was born in 1899 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
Use Bing was born in 1899 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
Bing studied history of art and mathematics at the universities of Frankfurt and Vienna until 1929. Self-taught as a photographer.
Bing has always worked as a freelance artist. Some of her assignments included: photographing painter Pavel Tchelitchew's staging of Ballanchine's Errante ballet at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris, in 1933; a photographic survey of Pommery champagne in Reims and wine production in Burgundy following the end of prohibition (engaged by George Putnam); and regular fashion photography in Paris for Harper’s Bazaar and Schiaparelli, 1933-35.
The photographer was among the first to use solarization (1934), electronic flash (1949), the 35mm camera (Leica) and to take photographs at night (since 1930).
Working in both black-and-white and color, Bing concentrated on pictorial photography: portraits, fashion, picture essays. Avoiding specialization, she has stressed the “abstract elements inherent in reality."
PUBLICATIONS Books: Numbers in Images, 1976; Words as Visions, drawings & poems, 1974; Photography 1859-1937, Beaumont Newhall, 1937; L’Art Vivant - Living Art, 1935. Anthologies: Diverse Images, 1979; A Ten-Year Salute, 1979; The Photograph Collector’s Guide, Lee D. Witkin & Barbara London, 1979; The /ulien Levy Collection, 1977; Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection, David Travis, 1976; Documentation Photographique, 1935 (Photo-Illustration: Paris); Photographic, Artset-Métiers Graphiques, 1933-34 (Paris). Periodical: Creative Camera, Nov 1978.
Bing's husband, Konrad Wolff, is a professor of piano and an internationally known author of music books.
Use Bing had close contact with the architect Mart Stam (for whom she made a photographic record of two building projects in 1930).
Use Bing had close contact with German painters Robert Michel and Ella Bergmann.
Use Bing had close contact with German painters Robert Michel and Ella Bergmann.
