Ylla

Camilla Koffler was born in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of a Hungarian father and Yugoslavian mother. In 1919, at the age of eight, she went to a German boarding school in Budapest, Hungary. In 1925, she went to live with her mother in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. There, she studied sculpture with Italian sculptor Petar Palavacini at the Academy of Fine Arts. She changed her name to "Ylla" when she learned that Camilla means "camel" in Serb. In 1931 she moved to Paris to study sculpture at the Académie Colarossi. While in Paris, she worked as a photo retoucher and assistant to photographer Ergy Landau. She began photographing animals, and had a successful exhibition of her work. She opened a studio to photograph pets. When France was invaded during World War II, her career in Paris was cut short. In 1941, she immigrated to the United States, having been sponsored by the New York's Museum of Modern Art. She opened a studio in New York City and produced eight books. In 1952, she travelled to Africa and began photographing animals in the wild. She published her work in the book Animals in Africa (1953). In 1954 she travelled to India, where she died the following year from injuries she received when falling from a jeep while photographing in Bharatpur, India. Her final book, Animals in India (1958), was published posthumously.