Trying to borrow a bull’s head and a rubber snake for a photo shoot in 1930s London must have been challenging, but Yevonde was a resourceful woman. ‘In her autobiography there are hilarious accounts of the sourcing of some of her props,’ says Clare Freestone, curator of photography at the National Portrait Gallery. ‘There’s a great account of her session with Dolly Campbell, posing as Niobe [the daughter of Tantalus in Greek mythology]. Yevonde realised that in Hollywood films people used glycerine to mimic tears, but when she used it on Dolly it mixed with her mascara and caused her to cry. Her response was simply to rush the focus and capture a shot of “the utmost sorrow and pain”. All for the sake of art.’
Born Yevonde Philone Cumbers in London 1893, this vivacious woman was educated at boarding
