Yevonde, the daring interpretation of female identity from photography

LONDON — “I think we should all agree that photography without women would be a sorry business”declared the British photographer Yevonde in 1921 before the Association of Professional Photographers.

“Yevonde: Life and Colour”, a vivid display of her idiosyncratic work at London’s recently reopened National Portrait Gallery, makes the case for her role as a pioneer of color photography.

Born Yevonde Cumbers in South London in 1893, she was known as Madame Yevonde. She signed the pictures of her and her 1940 autobiography, “In Camera,” simply Yevonde.

After attending several private schools in England and a convent school in Belgium, Yevonde was sent to a school for young ladies in Paris. She returned to England as a feminist in 1909, at the height of the women’s suffrage movement. She glimpsed possible professional independence in the examples of two successful female photographers, one of whom hired her as an apprentice.

In 1914, at age 21, Yevonde opened a studio with the help of his father, Frederick Cumbers. He quickly placed portraits of leading figures, including royalty, in the popular illustrated magazines of the day.

Yevonde’s career continued unabated until her death in 1975. A range of British notables appear in her photographs. Hung chronologically, the portraits of suffragettes, socialites, sovereigns, and celebrities transition from tentative investigations in black-and-white to theatrical studies in the saturated hues that became Yevonde’s hallmarks.

When Vivex—the first color process available to professional photographers in Britain—arrived in 1931, a spokesperson described it as “the bad boy of the photographic family.” In the (typically male) spheres of fine art photography, color was dismissed as a distracting trick. For Yevonde, it was a world of unexplored experimentation: “The red hair, the uniforms, the exquisite complexion and the colored nails gained strength,” he reflected in his memories.

“Let’s have a riot of color,” he demanded.

A darker palette emerges in Yevonde’s most famous series, “Goddesses and Others,” from 1935. These 26 photographs are studies of women between the ages of 15 and 40, dressed as mythological characters.

Margaret Sweeny appears as Helen of Troy, with her porcelain complexion and her dark hair wrapped in a flowing blue veil. Sheila Milbanke is the ill-fated Amazon queen Penthesilea: clad in leopard skin, her head thrown back, her throat pierced by Achilles’ arrow.

Although critics slammed the “Goddesses” as strident and unserious, given the portraits’ vibrant compositions and daring portrayal of female identity, they deserve to stand with Yevonde’s lauded male contemporaries Cecil Beaton and Angus McBean.

EMILY LABARGE. THE NEW YORK TIMES