Ylla | |
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Ylla with toucan, ca. 1950
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Born |
Camilla Koffler August 16, 1911 Vienna, Austria-Hungary |
Died | March 30, 1955 Bharatpur, India |
(aged 43)
Nationality | Hungarian |
Education | Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts, Académie Colarossi |
Known for | Photography |
Movement | Nature, animals |
Ylla (/ˈiːlæ/, born Camilla Koffler; 16 August 1911 – 30 March 1955), was a Hungarian photographer who specialized in animal photography. At the time of her death she "was generally considered the most proficient animal photographer in the world."
Koffler was born in Vienna, Austria, to a Romanian father and Serb mother, both Hungarian nationals. At age eight, she was placed in a German boarding school in Budapest, Hungary. In 1925, the teenage Koffler joined her mother in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where she studied sculpture with Italian Yugoslav sculptor Petar Pallavicini at the Academy of Fine Arts; finding that her given name Camilla was the same as the Serbian for "camel" (камила, kamyla), she changed it to "Ylla."
In 1929, Ylla received a commission for a bas-relief sculpture for a Belgrade movie theater. By 1931, she had moved to Paris, France, where she studied sculpture at the Académie Colarossi and worked as photo retoucher and assistant to photographer Ergy Landau.
In 1932, Ylla began photographing animals, exhibited her work at Galerie de La Pléiade, and opened a studio to photograph pets. In 1933, she was introduced to Charles Rado of the Rapho Guillumette agency.
In 1940, New York's Museum of Modern Art submitted her name to the U.S. Department of State requesting an entry visa; she immigrated to the United States in 1941.