Hilda Sjölin


Hilda Sjölin was a Swedish photographer, one of the first known professional woman pioneer photographers in her country.

Life

Sjölin was raised in Malmö as one of four daughters. On 24 May 1860 she advertised in Malmö that she performed photography on glass, waxcanvas and paper, and by February 1861, she opened her own studio on Västergatan, in the house where she was raised.
Hilda Sjölin was soon the "competent rival" of the other photographer of the city, C. M. Tillberg, and no longer had to advertise. She was known for her card – and portrait photography, and was from 1864 also employed as a photographer of the city views. She was the first photographer to take stereographic images of Malmö. She is not known to be active after 1870. She left Malmö in 1884, and moved to Hörby with her likewise unmarried sister in 1910.
Hilda Sjölin belonged to the pioneer generation of female professional photographers in Sweden after Brita Sofia Hesselius: the same time as she became active, Hedvig Söderström in Stockholm, Emma Schenson in Uppsala and Wilhelmina Lagerholm in Örebro, among others, became the first professional photographers of their respective cities: during the 1860s, they were at least 15 confirmed female photographers in Sweden, three of whom, Rosalie Sjöman, Caroline von Knorring and Bertha Valerius belonging to the elite of their profession. In 1888, the first woman, Anna Hwass, became a member of the board of the Photographic Society.

Samples of photographic work