Artist: Fritz Henle (1928-1993) German

Title: Nievis 1943

Medium: Gelatin Silver Photo ed 17/25

Dimensions: 9" x 9" Unframed, 14" x 14" Framed

Henle captured Nievis, a model used by Diego Rivera, who became the cover model for Henle’s book, “Mexico”. Henle said she had great poise and presence as well as being shy. Together model and photographer created this playful photograph of her hiding behind a banana leaf in Nievis’ garden in Cuernavaca. It appeared in a special edition Henle produced for Harpers Bazaar. This photograph comes from the Fritz Henle Estate directly. It is stamped and signed by his daughter Tina Henle, a resident of St. Augustine.

Beginning a career that spanned six decades in Germany in 1928, Fritz Henle traveled through the Mediterranean, India, China, and Japan in the pre-war 1930s, documenting those travels with his trusted Rolleiflex, before emigrating to the US in 1936. Passionately involved with the relatively new medium of photography, Henle was at once a successful freelance photojournalist, working for Life beginning in 1937; a top fashion photographer in New York during the 40s and early 50s; a portrait photographer sought after by notables of the time; a well traveled documentarist whose work took him to Asia in the pre-war 30s, later to Mexico, Paris, throughout the USA, and to the Caribbean in the late 40s, where he traveled the islands before making his home on St. Croix in 1958.