From Alice to Yva, explore the archive of Historical Heroines and learn about the rich lives and careers of pioneering women photographers. As we continue our mission, our online archives will continue grow.
Researched, written and curated by our volunteers. If you would like to contribute to this valuable resource, sign up to volunteer today.
For legendary photographer Gertrude Käsebier (1852–1934), photography was a means to escape an unhappy marriage and become financially independent....
Grete attended the Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt from 1910 – 1915 and worked as an assistant at the school until 1916....
From being the only woman associated with the Berlin Dada movement to evolving her craft for more than half a decade, Hannah Höch created photomontages that commented on politics, gender roles and popular culture....
Hansel Mieth was a German-born photojournalist, most notable for capturing the dire conditions of working-class Americans in the 1930s and 1940s...
A true pioneer of photographic practices in the 1800s, she created over 300 photographs in collaboration with her husband....
One of America’s foremost street photographers, Helen Levitt captured the energy of the streets of Spanish Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx through her candid, quirkily framed shots of children at play....
The Queen is probably the most photographed person in the world, but the royal photographer closest to our hearts is Dorothy Wilding, who was born within a mile of the Heroines Hub in Gloucester....
Chinese photojournalist Hou Bo (1924 – 2017) documented the rise of Mao Zedong from 1939 to 1968 in over 400 photographs as the official photographer of The Great Leader. She created most of the iconic images of Mao’s reign but fell...
Ida Kar was a woman of many origins who became most well-known for her portraits of London artistic circles, becoming the ‘Bohemian Photographer’....
Ilse Bing (1899–1998) was a German-born inter-war photographer who worked in photojournalism and portraiture in Paris and New York. She worked in the modernist style and innovated using solarisation and night photography. Her work was...
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