Zaida Ben-Yusuf
Encyclopedia
Zaida Ben-Yusuf was a New York
-based portrait photographer noted for her artistic portraits of wealthy, fashionable, and famous Americans of the turn of the 19th-20th century. She was born in London
to a German mother and an Algeria
n father, but became a naturalised American
citizen later in life. In 1901 the Ladies Home Journal featured her in a group of six photographers that it dubbed, "The Foremost Women Photographers in America." In 2008 the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
mounted an exhibition dedicated solely to Ben-Yusuf's work, re-establishing her as a key figure in the early development of fine art photography.
, from Berlin; and an Algerian father, Mustapha Moussa Ben Youseph Nathan. By 1881, Anna Ben-Yusuf, now separated from her husband, and her four daughters (Zaida (aged 11), Heidi (8), Leila (4) and Pearl (3)), were living in Ramsgate
, where Anna worked as a governess
. At some stage in the late 1880s, Anna Ben-Yusuf emigrated to the United States
, where by 1891, she had established a milliner's shop on Washington Street in Boston
.
In 1895, Zaida Ben-Yusuf followed in her mother's footsteps and emigrated to the United States, where she worked as a milliner at 251 Fifth Avenue, New York. She continued this for some time after becoming a photographer, writing occasional articles for Harpers Bazaar and the Ladies Home Journal on millinery.
. She travelled to Europe later that year, where she met with George Davison
, one of the co-founders of The Linked Ring, who encouraged her to continue her photography. She exhibited at their annual exhibitions until 1902.
In the spring of 1897, Zaida Ben-Yusuf opened her portrait photography studio at 124 Fifth Avenue, New York. On November 7, 1897, the New York Daily Tribune ran an article on Zaida Ben-Yusuf's studio and her work creating advertising
posters, which was followed by another profile in Frank Leslie's Weekly
on December 30. Through 1898, she became increasingly visible as a photographer, with ten of her works in the National Academy of Design
-hosted 67th Annual Fair of the American Institute, where her portrait of actress Virginia Earle
won her third place in the Portraits and Groups class. During November 1898, Zaida and Frances Benjamin Johnston
held a two-woman show of their work at the Camera Club of New York
.
In 1899, Zaida met with F. Holland Day
in Boston, and was photographed by him. She relocated her studio to 578 Fifth Avenue, and exhibited in a number of exhibitions, including the second Philadelphia Photographic Salon. She was also profiled in a number of publications, including an article on female photographers in The American Amateur Photographer, and a long piece in The Photographic Times in which Sadakichi Hartmann
described her as an "interesting exponent of portrait photography".
1900 saw Zaida Ben-Yusuf and Johnston assemble an exhibition on American women photographers for the Universal Exposition
in Paris. Zaida had five portraits in the exhibition, which travelled to Saint Petersburg
, Moscow
, and Washington, D.C.
. She was also exhibited in Holland Day's exhibition, The New School of American Photography, for the Royal Photographic Society
in London, and had four photographs selected by Alfred Stieglitz
for the Glasgow
International Exhibition of 1901, Scotland
.
In 1901, Zaida Ben-Yusuf wrote an article, "Celebrities Under the Camera", for the Sunday Evening Post, where she described her experiences with her sitters. By this stage she had photographed Grover Cleveland
, Franklin Roosevelt, and Leonard Wood
, amongst others. For the September issue of Metropolitan Magazine
she wrote another article, "The New Photography – What It Has Done and Is Doing for Modern Portraiture", where she described her work as being more artistic than most commercial photographers, but less radical than some of the better-known art photographers. The Ladies Home Journal that November declared her to be one of the "foremost women photographers in America", as she began the first of a series of six illustrated articles on "Advanced Photography for Amateurs" in the Saturday Evening Post.
Zaida Ben-Yusuf was listed as a member of the first American Photographic Salon when it opened in December 1904, although her participation in exhibitions was beginning to drop off. In 1906, she showed one portrait in the third annual exhibition of photographs at Worcester Art Museum
, Massachusetts
, the last known exhibition of her work in her lifetime.
, Kobe
, Nagasaki
, Kyoto
, where she rented a house; Tokyo
and Nikko. This tour formed the basis for a series of four illustrated articles, "Japan Through My Camera", published in the Saturday Evening Post from April 23, 1904. In February 1905, her essay on Kyoto appeared in Booklovers Magazine and Leslie's Monthly Magazine published an illustrated article on"Women in Japan". She also wrote about Japanese architecture
and lectured on the subject, with some of her photographs illustrating a January 1906 article by Katharine Budd in Architectural Record
, for which she submitted an article, "The Period of Daikan", which appeared the next month.
In 1906 she published three photographs from a visit to Capri
in the September issue of Photo Era, and in 1908, wrote three essays on life in England for the Saturday Evening Post. She returned to New York in November 1908, but was back in London the following year. The London phone book for 1911 listed her as a photographer in Chelsea
. In 1912, Sadakichi Hartmann wrote that Zaida had given up photography, and was living in the South Sea Islands.
On September 15, following the outbreak of World War I
and the German
invasion of France
, Zaida Ben-Yusuf returned to New York from Paris, where she had been living at the time. She applied for naturalization
in 1919, describing herself as a photographer, and taking ten years off her age. She continued to travel, visiting Cuba
in 1920 and Jamaica
in 1921.
By 1930, census records showed that Zaida had married a textile designer, Frederick J. Norris. She died three years later on September 27 in the Methodist Episcopal Hospital in Brooklyn
.
, which ran from April 11 through September 1, 2008. The curator, Frank H. Goodyear III, first learned about Ben-Yusuf when he discovered two of her photographs in 2003, depicting Daniel Chester French
and Everett Shinn
, and set forth to discover more about a photographer who had almost completely been forgotten.
Goodyear suggested that gender discrimination might have led to Zaida Ben-Yusuf being forgotten, despite her significant contributions towards developing photography as a medium of artistic expression. Photographic history had tended to focus on male photographers such as Stieglitz, and less so on the female photographers, even though it was one of the few occupations considered a respectable career for a single woman in turn of the century
New York. Even in relatively progressive New York, where innovators in the arts, science, journalism and politics gathered, it was difficult for a single professional woman to support herself. Another reason for Ben-Yusuf's obscurity was that she had not bequeathed a significant archive of her work to a single institution, making it difficult to pull together enough examples to give her career the appropriate historical assessment. Goodyear's exhibition at the Smithsonian acted as a showcase for Zaida Ben-Yusuf's work, re-establishing her as a key figure in fine art photographic history.
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
-based portrait photographer noted for her artistic portraits of wealthy, fashionable, and famous Americans of the turn of the 19th-20th century. She was born in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to a German mother and an Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
n father, but became a naturalised American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
citizen later in life. In 1901 the Ladies Home Journal featured her in a group of six photographers that it dubbed, "The Foremost Women Photographers in America." In 2008 the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (United States)
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in Washington, D.C., administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.-Building:...
mounted an exhibition dedicated solely to Ben-Yusuf's work, re-establishing her as a key figure in the early development of fine art photography.
Early life
Zaida Ben-Yusuf was born Esther Zeghdda Ben Youseph Nathan in London, England November 21, 1869, the eldest daughter of a German-born mother, Anna Kind Ben-Youseph NathanAnna Ben-Yusuf
Madame Anna Ben-Yusuf was a German-born milliner and teacher based in Boston and New York. She wrote The Art of Millinery , one of the first reference books on millinery technique...
, from Berlin; and an Algerian father, Mustapha Moussa Ben Youseph Nathan. By 1881, Anna Ben-Yusuf, now separated from her husband, and her four daughters (Zaida (aged 11), Heidi (8), Leila (4) and Pearl (3)), were living in Ramsgate
Ramsgate
Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Ports. It has a population of around 40,000. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline and its main...
, where Anna worked as a governess
Governess
A governess is a girl or woman employed to teach and train children in a private household. In contrast to a nanny or a babysitter, she concentrates on teaching children, not on meeting their physical needs...
. At some stage in the late 1880s, Anna Ben-Yusuf emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where by 1891, she had established a milliner's shop on Washington Street in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
.
In 1895, Zaida Ben-Yusuf followed in her mother's footsteps and emigrated to the United States, where she worked as a milliner at 251 Fifth Avenue, New York. She continued this for some time after becoming a photographer, writing occasional articles for Harpers Bazaar and the Ladies Home Journal on millinery.
Photography
In 1896 Zaida began to be known as a photographer. In April 1896, two of her pictures were reproduced in The Cosmopolitan Magazine, and another study was exhibited in London as part of an exhibition put on by The Linked RingThe Linked Ring
The Linked Ring was a photographic society created to propose and defend that photography was just as much an art as it was a science, motivated to propelling photography further into the fine art world...
. She travelled to Europe later that year, where she met with George Davison
George Davison (photographer)
George Davison was a noted English photographer, a proponent of impressionistic photography, a co-founder of the Linked Ring Brotherhood of British artists and a managing director of Kodak UK...
, one of the co-founders of The Linked Ring, who encouraged her to continue her photography. She exhibited at their annual exhibitions until 1902.
In the spring of 1897, Zaida Ben-Yusuf opened her portrait photography studio at 124 Fifth Avenue, New York. On November 7, 1897, the New York Daily Tribune ran an article on Zaida Ben-Yusuf's studio and her work creating advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
posters, which was followed by another profile in Frank Leslie's Weekly
Frank Leslie's Weekly
Frank Leslie's Weekly, later often known in short as Leslie's Weekly, was an American illustrated literary and news magazine founded in 1852 and continuing publication well into the 20th century. As implied by its name, it was published weekly, on Tuesdays. Its first editor was John Y. Foster...
on December 30. Through 1898, she became increasingly visible as a photographer, with ten of her works in the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
-hosted 67th Annual Fair of the American Institute, where her portrait of actress Virginia Earle
Virginia Earle
Virginia Earle was an American stage actress remembered for her work in light operas, musical comedies and vaudeville over the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century.-Early Life and Career:...
won her third place in the Portraits and Groups class. During November 1898, Zaida and Frances Benjamin Johnston
Frances Benjamin Johnston
Frances "Fannie" Benjamin Johnston was one of the earliest American female photographers and photojournalists.- Life :...
held a two-woman show of their work at the Camera Club of New York
The Camera Club of New York
Since 1884, The Camera Club of New York has been a forum to explore photography. Though the Club was created by well-to-do 'gentlemen' photography enthusiasts seeking a refuge from the mass popularization of the medium in the 1880s, it accepted its first woman as a member, Miss Elizabeth A...
.
In 1899, Zaida met with F. Holland Day
F. Holland Day
Fred Holland Day was an American photographer and publisher. He was the first in the U.S.A. to advocate that photography should be considered a fine art.-Life:...
in Boston, and was photographed by him. She relocated her studio to 578 Fifth Avenue, and exhibited in a number of exhibitions, including the second Philadelphia Photographic Salon. She was also profiled in a number of publications, including an article on female photographers in The American Amateur Photographer, and a long piece in The Photographic Times in which Sadakichi Hartmann
Sadakichi Hartmann
Carl Sadakichi Hartmann was a critic and poet of German and Japanese descent.Hartmann, born on the artificial island of Dejima, Nagasaki and raised in Germany, became an American citizen in 1894. An important early participant in modernism, Hartmann was a friend of such diverse figures as Walt...
described her as an "interesting exponent of portrait photography".
1900 saw Zaida Ben-Yusuf and Johnston assemble an exhibition on American women photographers for the Universal Exposition
Exposition Universelle (1900)
The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from April 15 to November 12, 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next...
in Paris. Zaida had five portraits in the exhibition, which travelled to Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, and Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
. She was also exhibited in Holland Day's exhibition, The New School of American Photography, for the Royal Photographic Society
Royal Photographic Society
The Royal Photographic Society is the world's oldest national photographic society. It was founded in London, United Kingdom in 1853 as The Photographic Society of London with the objective of promoting the Art and Science of Photography...
in London, and had four photographs selected by Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...
for the Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
International Exhibition of 1901, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
In 1901, Zaida Ben-Yusuf wrote an article, "Celebrities Under the Camera", for the Sunday Evening Post, where she described her experiences with her sitters. By this stage she had photographed Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...
, Franklin Roosevelt, and Leonard Wood
Leonard Wood
Leonard Wood was a physician who served as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Military Governor of Cuba and Governor General of the Philippines. Early in his military career, he received the Medal of Honor. Wood also holds officer service #2 in the Regular Army...
, amongst others. For the September issue of Metropolitan Magazine
Metropolitan Magazine (New York)
Metropolitan Magazine, known in its later years as Macfadden's Fiction Lover's Magazine, was a monthly periodical in the early 20th century with articles on politics and literature.-History:...
she wrote another article, "The New Photography – What It Has Done and Is Doing for Modern Portraiture", where she described her work as being more artistic than most commercial photographers, but less radical than some of the better-known art photographers. The Ladies Home Journal that November declared her to be one of the "foremost women photographers in America", as she began the first of a series of six illustrated articles on "Advanced Photography for Amateurs" in the Saturday Evening Post.
Zaida Ben-Yusuf was listed as a member of the first American Photographic Salon when it opened in December 1904, although her participation in exhibitions was beginning to drop off. In 1906, she showed one portrait in the third annual exhibition of photographs at Worcester Art Museum
Worcester Art Museum
The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 35,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day, representing cultures from all over the world. The WAM opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is the second largest art museum in New England...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, the last known exhibition of her work in her lifetime.
Travelling
In 1903, Zaida Ben-Yusuf travelled to Japan, where she toured YokohamaYokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
, Kobe
Kobe
, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...
, Nagasaki
Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...
, Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
, where she rented a house; Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
and Nikko. This tour formed the basis for a series of four illustrated articles, "Japan Through My Camera", published in the Saturday Evening Post from April 23, 1904. In February 1905, her essay on Kyoto appeared in Booklovers Magazine and Leslie's Monthly Magazine published an illustrated article on"Women in Japan". She also wrote about Japanese architecture
Japanese architecture
' originated in prehistoric times with simple pit-houses and stores that were adapted to a hunter-gatherer population. Influence from Han Dynasty China via Korea saw the introduction of more complex grain stores and ceremonial burial chambers....
and lectured on the subject, with some of her photographs illustrating a January 1906 article by Katharine Budd in Architectural Record
Architectural Record
Architectural Record is an American monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and interior design, published by McGraw-Hill Construction in New York City. It is over 110 years old...
, for which she submitted an article, "The Period of Daikan", which appeared the next month.
In 1906 she published three photographs from a visit to Capri
Capri
Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...
in the September issue of Photo Era, and in 1908, wrote three essays on life in England for the Saturday Evening Post. She returned to New York in November 1908, but was back in London the following year. The London phone book for 1911 listed her as a photographer in Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
. In 1912, Sadakichi Hartmann wrote that Zaida had given up photography, and was living in the South Sea Islands.
On September 15, following the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
invasion of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Zaida Ben-Yusuf returned to New York from Paris, where she had been living at the time. She applied for naturalization
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
in 1919, describing herself as a photographer, and taking ten years off her age. She continued to travel, visiting Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
in 1920 and Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
in 1921.
Later life
Zaida Ben-Yusuf took a post with the Reed Fashion Service in New York City in 1924, and lectured at local department stores on fashion related subjects. In 1926, she was appointed style director for the Retail Millinery Association of New York, an organisation for which she later became director.By 1930, census records showed that Zaida had married a textile designer, Frederick J. Norris. She died three years later on September 27 in the Methodist Episcopal Hospital in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
.
Rescue from obscurity
Zaida Ben-Yusuf's work was the subject of an exhibition, Zaida Ben-Yusuf: New York Portrait Photographer at the Smithsonian's National Portrait GalleryNational Portrait Gallery (United States)
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in Washington, D.C., administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.-Building:...
, which ran from April 11 through September 1, 2008. The curator, Frank H. Goodyear III, first learned about Ben-Yusuf when he discovered two of her photographs in 2003, depicting Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Life and career:...
and Everett Shinn
Everett Shinn
Everett Shinn was an American realist painter and member of the Ashcan School, also known as 'the Eight.' He was the youngest member of the group of modernist painters who explored the depiction of real life...
, and set forth to discover more about a photographer who had almost completely been forgotten.
Goodyear suggested that gender discrimination might have led to Zaida Ben-Yusuf being forgotten, despite her significant contributions towards developing photography as a medium of artistic expression. Photographic history had tended to focus on male photographers such as Stieglitz, and less so on the female photographers, even though it was one of the few occupations considered a respectable career for a single woman in turn of the century
Turn of the century
Turn of the century, in its broadest sense, refers to the transition from one century to another. The term is most often used to indicate a non-specific time period either before or after the beginning of a century....
New York. Even in relatively progressive New York, where innovators in the arts, science, journalism and politics gathered, it was difficult for a single professional woman to support herself. Another reason for Ben-Yusuf's obscurity was that she had not bequeathed a significant archive of her work to a single institution, making it difficult to pull together enough examples to give her career the appropriate historical assessment. Goodyear's exhibition at the Smithsonian acted as a showcase for Zaida Ben-Yusuf's work, re-establishing her as a key figure in fine art photographic history.
Further reading
- Goodyear, Frank H.; Wiley, Elizabeth O; & Boone, Jobyl A; Zaida Ben-Yusuf : New York portrait photographer (London ; New York : Merrell ; Washington : In association with National Portrait Gallery, 2008) ISBN 1858944392