Lillian Bassman

Her parents were Jewish intellectuals who emigrated to the United States from Ukraine (then in Russia) in 1905 and settled in Brooklyn, New York.

She grew up in Brooklyn and Greenwich Village, New York,[1] and studied at the Textile High School in Manhattan with future artist Alexey Brodovitch[2] and graduated in 1933.

Under the guidance of the Russian emigrant, Alexey Brodovitch, she began to photograph her model subjects primarily in black and white.

[6] The most notable qualities about her photographic work are the high contrasts between light and dark, the graininess of the finished photos, and the geometric placement and camera angles of the subjects.

[1][12] She first met her future husband, photographer Paul Himmel (born 1914), at Coney Island at age six.