Yevonde Philone Middleton was an English photographer, who pioneered the use of colour in portrait photography.
16 Facts About Yevonde Middleton
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Yevonde Middleton used the professional name Madame Yevonde or simply Yevonde in a career lasting over 60 years.
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Yevonde Middleton was the eldest of two daughters, and with Verena, her younger sister, the family moved to Bromley in 1899.
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Yevonde Middleton was initially educated by a governess and a local day school, then at the liberal and progressive Lingholt Boarding School in Hindhead and subsequently at the Guilde Internationale in Paris, as well as boarding schools in Belgium and France.
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From an early age Yevonde Middleton Cumbers displayed an independent attitude.
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Yevonde Middleton's heroine was women's liberationist Mary Wollstonecraft, and she joined the Suffragette movement in 1910.
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Yevonde Middleton attended an interview with Lena Connell, who took austere photos of nobility and suffragette leaders.
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Yevonde Middleton's subjects were often pictured looking away from the camera, and she began using props to creative effect.
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Yevonde Middleton was hugely enthusiastic about it and spent countless hours in her studio experimenting with how to get the best results.
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In 1933, Madame Yevonde Middleton moved , this time to 28 Berkeley Square.
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Yevonde Middleton began using colour in her advertising work as well as her portraits, and took on other commissions too.
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Yevonde Middleton joined the Royal Photographic Society briefly in 1921 and then again in 1933, and became a Fellow in 1940.
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Yevonde Middleton subsequently took studio portraits of many of the participants, in appropriate costume and surrounded by appropriate objects.
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Yevonde Middleton went on to produce further series based on the signs of the zodiac and the months of the year.
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Partly influenced by surrealist artists, particularly Man Ray, Yevonde Middleton used surprising juxtapositions of objects which displayed her sense of humour.
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Yevonde Middleton returned to working in black and white, and produced many notable portraits.