Lilo Raymond
American, born Germany, 1922 - 2009
Born in Frankfurt, germany in 1922, Lilo Raymond fled to the United States when the Nazis came to power. She settled in New York City and became involved in the Greenwich Village art scene. Her interest in photography stemmed from childhood, but Raymond did not pursue it as a serious endeavor until she was in her 30s and studied with the photographer David Vestal at the Photo League. In 1977, she had her first solo exhibtion at the Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery and began to exhibit regularily. In the 1980s, she moved to the Hudson Valley where she died in 2009. A retrospective exhibition of her photographs was held at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Modern Art at SUNY New Paltz in 2008. Raymond's work is included in the Museum of Modern Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Norton Museum of Art; and the Victoria & Albert Museum, among others.
Raymond's output is relatively small and focused, as she once stated to her students at the School of Visual Arts "I only take one picture a year that I really like." Preferring to work in black and white, which she believed had the capacity to reveal the essence of her subjects; Raymond's photographs are concerned with the qualities of light and atmosphere. Whether her subject was a neatly made bed, a set of pillows, or a vase of flowers, she was a master at stripping away the extraneous details to create haunting images of quiet power and exquisite beauty.
Raymond's output is relatively small and focused, as she once stated to her students at the School of Visual Arts "I only take one picture a year that I really like." Preferring to work in black and white, which she believed had the capacity to reveal the essence of her subjects; Raymond's photographs are concerned with the qualities of light and atmosphere. Whether her subject was a neatly made bed, a set of pillows, or a vase of flowers, she was a master at stripping away the extraneous details to create haunting images of quiet power and exquisite beauty.