Ylla


Camilla "Ylla" Koffler was a Hungarian photographer who specialized in animal photography. At the time of her death she "was generally considered the most proficient animal photographer in the world."

Biography

Koffler was born in Vienna, Austria, to a Romanian father and Croatian mother, both Hungarian nationals. At age eight, she was placed in a German boarding school in Budapest, Hungary. In 1926, the teenage Koffler joined her mother in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where she studied sculpture with Italian Yugoslav sculptor Petar Pallavicini at the Academy of Fine Arts; finding that her given name Camilla was the same as the Serbian for "camel", she changed it to "Ylla".
In 1929, Ylla received a commission for a bas-relief sculpture for a Belgrade movie theater. By 1931, she had moved to Paris, France, where she studied sculpture at the Académie Colarossi and worked as photo retoucher and assistant to photographer Ergy Landau.
In 1932, Ylla began photographing animals, exhibited her work at Galerie de La Pléiade, and opened a studio to photograph pets. In 1933, she was introduced to Charles Rado and became a founding member of the RAPHO press agency.
In 1940, New York's Museum of Modern Art submitted her name to the U.S. Department of State requesting an entry visa; she immigrated to the United States in 1941.
In 1952, Ylla traveled to Africa, and in 1954 she visited India for the first time.
In 1953, en route with her mother to Cape Cod by plane, the plane ran out of fuel and crashed. Ylla, trapped under water, struggled to free herself and fainted upon reaching the surface. She was rescued by a fisherman, her mother drowned. Proceeds from wrongful death insurance helped pay for Ylla's journey through India the following year.
In 1955, Ylla was fatally injured after falling from a jeep while photographing a bullock cart race during festivities in Bharatpur, North India. The last photographs she ever took were published in the November 14, 1955 issue of Sports Illustrated.

Quotes and posthumous tributes

Charles Rado:
Harry Phillips, Publisher of Sports Illustrated:

Movie ''Hatari!'' Character Based on Ylla

Her life work of photographing animals inspired famous movie director and producer, Howard Hawks, so much that he had his script writer, Leigh Brackett, change the script to create one of the main characters based on Ylla for his blockbuster movie, Hatari!, starring John Wayne. Hawks said, "We took that part of the story from a real character, a German girl. She was the best animal photographer in the world." The movie character Anna Maria "Dallas" D’Alessandro is a photographer working for a zoo and was played by actress Elsa Martinelli.

Selected bibliography