Bandy was born Ida Gurevitsch to a relatively non-religious Jewish family in Tallinn, Estonia, then a part of the Russian Empire.^[2] Her family escaped to Moscow at the outbreak of war in 1914, but the Revolution of 1917 nevertheless claimed the life of one of her brothers.^[3]

In the early 1920s, Bandy remained in Moscow while her mother accompanied her youngest brother Benjamin to Germany. At this time, Bandy met Nicolas Neumann (alias Nicolas Bandy), a Hungarian photographer who mentored her in photography. They married in 1925 but were to divorce later – even so, Ina Bandy would keep her pseudonym, moving to Germany before settling in France during the early 1930s. In Paris, she became a member of Alliance Photo, a photographic agency founded by René Zuber and directed by Maria Eisner, but she would cross into the zone libre at the outbreak of World War II.^[1]

After World War II, Bandy went back to Paris and moved into the Hotel de Paix, where she set up her workshop on the ground floor.^[3]

She produced photographic commissions for various newspapers and magazines such as ELLE, Médecine de France and Art News. While photographing a group of children living at a Paris Metro station for the Combat newspaper, Bandy met Robert Ardouvin, founder of ‘Les Amis des Enfants de Paris’. From 1948 the association housed underprivileged children in a village in Vercheny^[4] and Bandy helped to photograph these children, remaining attached to the ‘Village D’Enfants’ until her death in 1973.^[5]

In 1948, Ina Bandy also became a member of Le Groupe des XV, putting her in the company of other humanist photographers such as Willy Ronis and Sabine Weiss.^[3][6]

Bandy also worked for organisations such as UNESCO, Air France, the French National Archives and the Louvre.^[3] Her friendship with Régine Pernoud, a French medieval historian, would also lead her to take photographs of seals, medals, and medieval churches.^[3]

Collections edit

A collection of Bandy's photographs are held at the BnF^[7] and the French National Archives.^[1] She was commissioned by Régine Pernoud, conservator at the Museum of History in France between 1949 and 1974.^[1]

The Courtauld Institute of Art also holds photographs by Bandy in the Conway Library.^[8] They are currently being digitised by the Courtauld Institute of Art, as part of the Courtauld Connects project.^[8]

Exhibitions edit

2006-2007: La photographie humaniste: 1945-1968 (curated by Laure Beaumont-Maillet, Francoise Denoyelle). Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.^[9]

2013: La vie a fleur d’objectif, a solo exhibition of Ina Bandy's works, the Gallery of the Alliance Française de Bruxelles-Europe, Brussels.^[2]

Published work edit

Bandy has contributed photographs for various works written by André Malraux, including his three volumes on The Psychology of Art (published 1947–1949).^[10][11] Her photographs taken in Sri Lanka between 1955 and 1956 are used as sources for the illustrations in E. F. C. Ludowyk's book The Footprint of the Buddha.^[12]