24 Facts About Zaida Ben-Yusuf

Zaida Ben-Yusuf was an American portrait photographer based in New York.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf was born as Esther Zeghdda Ben Youseph Nathan in London, England, on November 21,1869, the eldest daughter of a German mother, Anna Kind Ben-Youseph Nathan and an Algerian father, Mustapha Moussa Ben Youseph Nathan.

Later in 1888, Anna Zaida Ben-Yusuf emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts where she had established a milliner's shop on Washington Street in Boston by 1891.

In 1895, Zaida Ben-Yusuf followed in her mother's footsteps and emigrated to the United States where she worked as a milliner at 251 Fifth Avenue, New York.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf continued this for some time after becoming a photographer, writing occasional articles for Harpers Bazaar and The Ladies Home Journal on millinery.

In 1896, Zaida Ben-Yusuf began to be known as a photographer.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf traveled to Europe later that year, where she met with George Davison, one of the co-founders of The Linked Ring, who encouraged her to continue her photography.

In 1899, Ben-Yusuf met with F Holland Day in Boston, and was photographed by him.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf relocated her studio to 578 Fifth Avenue, and exhibited in a number of exhibitions, including the second Philadelphia Photographic Salon.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf was profiled in a number of publications, including an article on female photographers in The American Amateur Photographer, and a long piece in The Photographic Times in which Sadakichi Hartmann described her as an "interesting exponent of portrait photography".

In 1896 Zaida Ben-Yusuf was included in an exhibition organized by Linked Ring, Brotherhood of the London and continued to exhibit with them until 1902.

In 1900, Zaida Ben-Yusuf corresponded with Johnston about an exhibition of American women photographers in Paris timed to coincide with the Universal Exposition.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf had five portraits in the show, which traveled to Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Washington, DC She was exhibited in Holland Day's exhibition, The New School of American Photography, for the Royal Photographic Society in London, and had four photographs selected by Alfred Stieglitz for the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1901, Scotland.

In 1901, Zaida Ben-Yusuf wrote an article, "Celebrities Under the Camera", for the Saturday Evening Post, where she described her experiences with her sitters.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf was listed as a member of the first American Photographic Salon when it opened in December 1904, although her participation in exhibitions was beginning to drop off.

In 1903, Zaida Ben-Yusuf traveled to Japan, where she toured Yokohama, Kobe, Nagasaki, Kyoto, Tokyo and Nikko.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf wrote about Japanese architecture and lectured on the subject, with some of her photographs illustrating a January 1906 article by Katharine Budd in Architectural Record, for which she submitted an article, "The Period of Daikan", which appeared the next month.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf returned to New York in November 1908, but was back in London the following year.

In 1912, Sadakichi Hartmann wrote that Zaida Ben-Yusuf had given up photography, and was living in the South Sea Islands.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf applied for naturalization in 1919, describing herself as a photographer, and taking ten years off her age.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf continued to travel, visiting Cuba in 1920 and Jamaica in 1921.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf took a post with the Reed Fashion Service in New York City in 1924, and lectured at local department stores on fashion related subjects.

Goodyear suggested that gender discrimination might have led to Zaida Ben-Yusuf being forgotten, despite her significant contributions towards developing photography as a medium of artistic expression.

Goodyear's exhibition at the Smithsonian acted as a showcase for Zaida Ben-Yusuf's work, re-establishing her as a key figure in fine art photographic history.