Nina Leen (died January 1, 1995)
was a Russian-born American photographer, a constant contributor to Life. Leen emigrated
to the United States in 1939, she had also lived in Italy and Switzerland.Her
first photographs to be published in Life in April 1940 were of tortoises at
the Bronx Zoo, taken with her Rolleiflex camera. While she never became a staff
photographer at Life, she contributed as a contract photographer until the magazine
closed in 1972.
Leen was a prolific photographer
of fashion for Life and was long married to the fashion photographer Serge
Balkin. She was recognized with inclusion by Edward Steichen of two of her
photographs in The Family of Man international touring exhibition; one a
photograph of a child at a blackboard, the other, several generations of an
Ozark farming family (later selected by Carl Sagan for the 12 inch Voyager
golden records).
