This new book, published to mark the centenary of Bohm’s birth, showcases the diversity of her work and her profound empathy for the human condition. It contains texts by Monica Bohm-Duchen, Martin Barnes and Rachel Wallace with additional contributions from Maria Balshaw, Katy Barron, Colin Ford CBE, Anna Fox, Lydia Goldblatt, Mark Haworth-Booth, Amanda Hopkinson, Ian Jeffrey, Esther Leslie, Markéta Luskačová, Don McCullin, Pelumi Odubanjo, Martin Parr, Nissan N. Perez, Marissa Roth, Paul Smith, George Szirtes, Rachel Wallace, Marina Warner and Val Williams.

Dorothy Bohm (née Dorothea Israelit) was born on 22 June 1924 in Königsberg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia). In 1932 the family settled in Memel (now Klaipeda, Lithuania) to escape the rising threat of Nazism. In June 1939, her parents sent her to the safety of England, which would remain her home thereafter.

In 1940, Dorothy enrolled on a vocational photography course at Manchester College of Technology, and between 1942 and 1945 worked as an assistant at a leading portrait studio in that city. Following her marriage to fellow refugee Louis Bohm in late 1945, she established her own portrait studio – Studio Alexander – in central Manchester.

Bohm’s first solo exhibition took place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in 1969. In 1971 she was closely involved with the founding in Covent Garden of the pioneering Photographers’ Gallery and served as its Associate Director for the next fifteen years.

Bohm’s work has been exhibited widely and is held in a number of public collections in the UK, including Tate, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museum of London and the National Portrait Gallery. A major retrospective was held at Manchester Art Gallery in 2010, and further exhibitions and publications have followed, consolidating her reputation as one of the doyennes of British photography. She was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 2009.