Ylla was a photographer and photojournalist known for her work with animals and development of the genre of animal photography. Born Camilla Koffler in Vienna, Austria in 1911 to Romanian and Croatian Hungarian national parents, she traveled with her mother during World War I before going to a German boarding school in Budapest in 1919. In 1926 she rejoined her mother in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where she studied sculpture and art.
In 1931 Ylla moved to Paris to study art at the Académie Colarossi and worked as an assistant to photographer Ergy Landau. In the 1930s Ylla began taking photographs of animals, which were successfully exhibited, leading her to open a studio specializing in animal portraiture. In 1937 Ylla published her first books, which were small collections of cat and dog photographs titled Yllas Dog Fancies, Chats par Ylla, and Chiens par Ylla. She also collaborated with evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley on his book, Animal Language, in 1937.
In 1940-1941 she obtained a visa to immigrate to the US with the assistance of the Museum of Modern Art; she opened a studio in New York and continued to photograph animals, publishing books containing her photographs. In 1952 she traveled to Africa and spent six months photographing in Kenya and Uganda for a book titled Animals in Africa, moving away from her previous practice of photographing animals in zoos and in her studio in order to photograph them in their natural habitat.
In 1954 Ylla traveled to India for seven months, where she attended the Dasara festival in 1954 at the invitation of the Maharaja of Mysore; she was later invited to attend the annual festival in Bharatpur in 1955 by the Maharaja of Bharatpur. It was here she fell from a jeep while photographing a bullock cart race on March 28, 1955; she died of her injuries two days later.
Two books were published based on her photographs from India: Animals in India and The Little Elephant. Another seven books of her work were published posthumously by her photo agent Charles Rado, who continued to promote Ylla's work until his own death in 1970.
Source: Ylla archive by the Center for Creative Photography at The University of Arizona
The collection is open for research.
The collection is subject to all copyright laws. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright, beyond that allowed by fair use, requires the researcher to obtain permission of copyright holders.
Ylla Postcard Collection (SC-41). VMFA Archives, Richmond, Virginia.
The collection consists of 16 postcards created by animal photographer Ylla between the 1930s-1940s. The postcards depict black-and-white images of domestic cats and dogs. Five of the postcards include writing on the verso. All of the postcards are written in French.
The collection is arranged in chronological and numeric order according to writing on the verso of the postcards.
The postcards have been placed in protective sleeves for preservation purposes. English translations for postcards which include notes in French are forthcoming.
The collection was purchased by the VMFA Library in 2022.
Ylla archive at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona