The trailblazing photographer who captured Britain’s first supermodel

Get to know Elsbeth Juda.

The late photographer, Elsbeth Juda, was a pioneer of modern fashion photography: a Jewish immigrant who brought a new artistic vision to Britain from Germany. Despite a successful commercial career spanning 45 years, Juda had no major exhibition until she was 98. Finally a long anticipated retrospective of Juda’s work is currently show at the Jewish Museum in London. From capturing Britain’s first supermodel in the 1950s, high-drama imagery for cutting-edge magazine Ambassador to collaborating with the most famous faces in the art world, step inside Elsbeth Juda’s gritty and glamourous world…

Shelagh Wilson with parrot, Copacobana, 1951 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Barbara Goalen with the admiring board members of the Calico Printers Association, Lancashire, 195 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
On the Embankment, London, 1951 Barbara Goalen in Norman Hartnell couture © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Barbara Goalen with ‘Betty’, a mill engine installed in 1895, Lancashire, 1952 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Barbara Goalen behind a printing screen, Lancashire, 1952 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Barbara Goalen with ‘Betty’, a mill engine installed in 1895, Lancashire, 1952 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Barbara Goalen with the admiring board members of the Calico Printers Association, Lancashire, 195 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Corps de Ballet, dressing room, Sadlers Wells, 1949 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
On the Embankment, London, 1951 Barbara Goalen in Norman Hartnell couture © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Peter Blake with model Marie-Lise Gres at the ‘Love Wall’ in his studio, London, 1961 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Shelagh Wilson with parrot, Copacobana, 1951 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Shelagh Wilson, playsuit, Copacobana, 1951 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Winston Churchill sitting for Graham Sutherland, 1954 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Winston Churchill sitting for Graham Sutherland, 1954 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London