Selected dates:

June 10, 1908

Born in the city of Surazh (Vitebsk district, Russian Empire, now Vitebsk region, Republic of Belarus).

Her father, Sholem-Shender Volfovich Ryvkin, a native of Gomel, studied philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, published stories and essays in periodicals in Yiddish and Russian; mother - Freida Naftolevna Perelman, originally from Kobrin.

1912

The family moved to Gomel.

1915

The family moved to Stockholm.

Since 1919

Anna and her mother, brothers and sisters lived in Germany, in Swinemünde.

1922

The family returned to Sweden. Anna went to the Whitlock School in Stockholm and also attended the Vera Alexandrova Ballet School.

1927

Anna Rivkin married journalist and translator Daniel Brikk. That same year she began studying photography.

1929

The photographer opened her own photo studio. She specialized in portrait photography, creating photographs of dancers and dance scenes.

1932

An album of her photographs in this genre was published - Svensk Danskonst.

1932-1935

Yosef Rivkin also headed the publishing house of the same name. Anna, in turn, was close to the circles that formed around the magazine, and created portraits of the authors who wrote for it, which were then used as book illustrations.

1933

I visited Paris, where I photographed street scenes and architecture. In addition, she created a number of portraits of surrealist writers and artists, including André Breton, Jean Arp, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst and Man Ray.

Since 1940

I was engaged in documentary photography.

1942

She accompanied journalist Ellie Jannes to Lapland, and they published a joint book, Renarna visar vägen.

1948

She published the book “Palestine”, the text for which was written by Daniel Brikk.

1955

Her joint book with Ivar Lo-Johansson, Zigenarväg, about the life of gypsies in Sweden was published. However, her greatest success came from children's books with photo illustrations (Nine of them had texts written by Astrid Lindgren). Many of them told the stories of children from different countries, including Ethiopia, Finland, the Netherlands, Japan, Yugoslavia, Norway and Thailand.

1955

Her and her husband’s book “Israel” was published.

Israel was also where one of the most famous photographs of Anna Rivkin was taken, which depicts an old woman with her hand raised in the air and which Edward Steichen selected, among 500 photographs from different countries, for his exhibition “The Human Race” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

1962

The book Medmänniskor has been published, featuring selected portraits from all the years of her photography career.

December 19, 1970

Died in Tel Aviv, Israel. She bequeathed her photo archive to the Swedish Museum of Modern Art.