Yevonde, Madame (Yevonde Cumbers; 1893-1975), English portrait photographer, born in London into a well-to-do middle-class family and expensively educated. From 1911 to 1914 she apprenticed with the London portraitist Lallie Charles and then opened her own studio, with a brief interruption during the First World War. She specialized in society portraiture, on which she sought to put her own creative stamp. One series, for which she had costumed her well-known sitters as mythical goddesses, was exhibited in 1935 to considerable acclaim. Her business was highly successful, with images appearing frequently in Sketch and Tatler. She belonged to the Professional Photographers' Association and the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), with which she exhibited during the 1920s.
Yevonde was a confirmed suffragist, researching the role of women photographers in England and abroad and actively urging women to take up the profession. In the 1920s she began to work in advertising, using colour materials—in particular the Vivex process—and props to create elaborate compositions. A large retrospective of her portrait work was held at the RPS in 1973.
— Naomi Rosenblum
Bibliography
- Gibson, R., and Roberts, P., Madame Yevonde (1990)
