Gisèle Freund grew up in an upper-class Jewish family in Berlin-Schöneberg and later studied sociology at the Frankfurt School. In 1933, she was forced to flee to Paris. Her dissertation became a standard work on photography. Adrienne Monnier and Sylvia Beach were her friends. Gisèle Freund's portraits of Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Simone Beauvoir, and others are iconic. She was a member of the Magnum photo agency.