YLLA Art for Sale at Auction

b. 1911 - d. 1955

YLLA 1911 – 1955 - "One of the most skilled and dedicated photographer of animals. They were her life, she loved them all."

Camilla Koffler, known by her artist name Ylla, was born in Vienna in 1911 to a Serb mother and a Romanian father, both Hungarian nationals. During the First World War, she was obliged to travel with her mother by foot between Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia, the family jewels sewn into her mother's fur collar and the money stuffed in her shoes. In 1919, she was placed in a German boarding school in Budapest, a six year period of relative stability. She joined her mother in Belgrade in 1926 where she studied sculpture with Pallavicini at the Academy of Fine Arts. Soon she discovered that Camilla in Serbe stands for camel, whereupon she called herself Ylla. Her early interest in animals is revealed in a bas-relief sculpture depicting animals, commissioned by a cinema in Belgrade, as well as by her efforts at the time to find homes for stray cats and dogs.

In 1931 Ylla moved to Paris to continue her studies at the Académie Colarossi, supporting herself by working with the photographer Ergy Landau as assistant and photo retoucher, an experience that lead her to consider foregoing sculpture for photography. The following year, after showing Landau several photographs of animals taken while on vacation in Normandy, Landau, impressed with her work, arranged an exhibition for her at the Galerie de La Pléiade. The exhibition was well received, motivating Ylla to open a studio in Paris specializing in animal portraits. Landau was Ylla's entrée to the artistic milieu of Montparnasse where she was introduced to Charles Rado of the Rapho photo agency, who immediately began to promote her internationally in the world of publishing. Her photographs first appeared in several annual editions of Photographie, published by Arts et Métiers Graphiques, and Lilliput in England. In 1937, Ylla published two small collections of dog and cat photographs, followed in 1938 by her first major book, Petits et Grands (published as Big and Little in England and the United States). That same year she collaborated with British evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley for his new book, Animal Language, which included two records of animal calls.

The Second World War and the invasion of France interrupted Ylla's developing career. In 1940, The Museum of Modern Art in New York submitted her name to the U.S. State Department requesting an entry visa, which in 1941 enabled her to immigrate to America. She opened a studio in New York and was soon immersed again in the world of zoos, pet owners, advertisers and editors. Her work appeared in most major illustrated magazines both in the U.S. and abroad. Ylla produced ten books between 1944 and 1954, her one portfolio classic, Animals, having a text by Julian Huxley, and in the French edition, Des Bêtes..., accompanied with a poem by Jacques Prévert. Several were designed for children, two of which, The Sleepy Little Lion and Two Little Bears, became juvenile classics published in numerous languages. Her renown even extended to comic books depicting her life story.

Ylla travelled to Africa in 1952, where she spent three months in Kenya and Uganda photographing wild animals in their natural habitat for her book Animals in Africa, which has a text by the evolutionary archeologist L. S. B. Leakey. This was a new and exciting experience, one that marked a turning point in her work. Up to then, many of her photographs had been taken in her studio or at zoos, but after this trip she preferred to work in the wild.

It was the film director Jean Renoir who prompted Ylla to travel to India. Ylla sent a copy of Animals in Africa to the Maharaja of Mysore who in turn invited her to attend the Dasara festival in 1954. She was subsequently invited by the Maharaja of Bharatpur to attend their annual festival. On March 30, 1955, while photographing a dangerous bullock cart race during the festivities in Bharatpur, she fell from a jeep and was fatally injured.

Photographs taken in India became the basis for two books: Animals in India and The Little Elephant. Continued strong interest in her work enabled Charles Rado to produce another seven books before passing away in 1970.