Kathryn Abbe was an American photographer.
Early life and education:
Kathryn Abbe was born Kathryn McLaughlin in 1919, in Brooklyn. Her twin sister was photographer Frances McLaughlin-Gill. They were raised in Wallingford, Connecticut and were the valedictorian and salutatorian of their graduating class at Lyman Hall High School. Abbe attended the Pratt Institute, where she studied under Walter Civardi and painter Reginald Marsh; she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1941. She also attended the New School for Social Research from 1939 until 1941, where she studied under Yasuo Kuniyoshi. In 1946, she married photographer James Abbe, Jr., the son of the Hollywood photographer James Abbe. The couple had three children.
Career:
Abbe won Vogue magazine's Prix de Paris photography award in 1941. By 1942 she was working for Vogue under Toni Frissell; she left the magazine and became a professional freelance photographer in 1944 - one of few women to hold the position at the time. Although in the 1940s she photographed New England and Brooklyn extensively, by the mid-1940s her assignments took her around the world, notably to Paris, Havana, New York, Rome, and Milan. Her subjects often included fashion icons, entertainment personalities, children, street vignettes, and artists. Her photographs of Carmen Dell'Orefice and Lisa Fonssagrives are particularly striking. Her work was published in over eighty books and international periodicals, among them, Better Homes and Gardens, McCall's, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Paris Match, and Vogue. She was awarded more than twenty major magazine covers - a rare achievement for a female photographer of her time. A co-author of three books, "Stars of the Twenties Observed by James Abbe" (1974), "Twins on Twins", (with her twin sister, 1980), and "Twin Lives in Photography" (2011), she lectured extensively and appeared on many television programs, among them, the "Dick Cavett Show". A 2000 documentary, "Twin Lenses," was produced by Nina Rosemblum about the lives and careers of Abbe and her sister.

Source: wikipedia.org