A stunning series of photographs unveiled in a new exhibition celebrates the work of a photographer who escaped the Nazis and built a life in Britain.
Dorothy Bohm, who died last year aged 98, spent more than seven decades honing her craft after coming to Britain from Lithuania at the age of 14.
When she said goodbye to her father, he gave her his Leica camera, put it around her neck and said, “It may be useful to you.”
Although she initially had no interest in photography, Bohm went on to have a hugely successful and celebrated career.
A collection of her photographs is on display at The Photographers’ Gallery near Oxford Circus, central London.
Many depict ordinary people in locations as diverse as Morocco, Paris, New York and Egypt, from the 1950s to the early 2000s.
Bohm repeatedly declared her fondness for Britain. Writing in the Daily Mail in 2015, she spoke of her “enormous love for this beautiful country, for what it stands for, its principles, its humanity compared to other countries.”
A stunning series of photographs unveiled in a new exhibition celebrates the work of photographer Dorothy Bohm, who escaped the Nazis and built a life in Britain. Above: Two women in Aswan, a city in southern Egypt, in 1987
Bohm, who died last year aged 98, spent more than 70 years honing her craft after coming to Britain from Lithuania at the age of 14. Above: Bohm as a young woman and in 2006
In a quote on The Photographers’ Gallery website, she added: ‘I’ve been taking photographs all my life.
‘The photo fulfills my deep need to prevent things from disappearing.
‘It makes transience less painful and preserves some of the special magic I have searched for and found.
‘I have tried to create order out of chaos, to find stability in movement and beauty in the most unlikely places.’
Bohm was born in June 1924 in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) to a wealthy Jewish family.
The family moved to Lithuania when the situation in Germany deteriorated in the early 1930s.
A woman using a pay phone in New York in the 1970s, when Bohm was happily married
The scene at Villa des Tulipes, 18th arrondissement, Paris in 1955
A woman picking flowers to make a bunch, Rude de la Loi, Brussels, October 1949
A young boy opening a pack of candy in New York in 1952
In June 1939, Bohm was sent to the safety of England. She learned English in a year at a boarding school in Ditchling, East Sussex.
She went on to study photography at Manchester College of Technology, where she met her future husband Louis Bohm, a Polish Jewish refugee who studied chemistry there.
During the war, Bohm used her personal experiences to lecture for the Ministry of Information about the crimes of Nazi Germany.
She married Louis in 1945 and shortly afterwards opened her own photography studio in Manchester.
In the 1950s the couple settled in London, where they raised their two daughters.
Bohm’s husband’s work took him around the world, allowing the photographer to take photos in places like Mexico and South Africa.
She received word that her parents were safe and living in Riga, so she traveled to the USSR to meet them in 1960.
They had escaped the Nazis, but were then deported by the Soviets to separate labor camps before being reunited.
In Moscow, Bohm was followed by the Soviet security services. She took photos in the city’s GUM department store and later admitted to the Telegraph that she felt “slightly uncomfortable” taking them.
“We knew we were being watched, so I took a risk,” she added.
Two men look stunned as Bohm takes their photo in Coney Island, New York, in 1956
The scene at Castelo de S. Jorge in Lisbon, 1963
A little girl walks her dog in the Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, 1953
A soothing view of the Seine River in Paris in 1955
Bohm continued to take photographs throughout Europe in later life. Above: Locals on a street in Marrakech, Morocco, in 2004
A colorful scene in front of a kiosk in Lisbon, 1996
A photo taken by Bohm in Scheveningen, Netherlands, 2009
In 1963, Bohm’s parents were allowed to join their daughter and son-in-law in London.
She had her first solo exhibition – ‘People at Peace’ – in 1969. The photographer’s first book, A Word Observed, was published in 1970.
Later in the decade she took fewer photographs and instead helped build the reputation of The Photographers’ Gallery, which opened in 1971.
She served as Associate Director of the Gallery for fifteen years.
In the mid-1980s, Bohm began working with color and embraced more abstract work, taking photographs of sidewalk furniture and reflections in shop windows.
Her husband’s death in 1994 prompted Bohm to consider giving up her profession, but she continued with it, believing Louis would disapprove.
She continued to work and take photographs in her Hampstead neighborhood and beyond well into her 90s.