Born Sabine Weber on July 23, 1924 in Saint-Gingolph, Switzerland. After training at the renowned Atelier Boissonnas in Geneva, she moved to Paris in 1946, where she first worked as an assistant to fashion photographer Willy Maywald. She began working as a freelance photographer in 1949, married the US artist, Hugh Weiss (1925–2007) in 1950, and became a member of the Rapho Photo Agency in 1952, working for numerous national and international magazines. The rediscovery of her early black and white photography in exhibitions since the late 1970s, was accompanied by new works created on numerous trips around the world. She favoured working with a Leica and a Rolleiflex. In 2017, the photographer – who had had French nationality for a long time – was honoured for her life's work by the Swiss Photo Academy. Weiss passed away in Paris on December 28, 2021. Her legacy is cared for by Photo Elysée in Lausanne, and includes around 160,000 begative, 7,000 contact sheets, 8,000 prints, 46,000 slides and comprehensive documentary material.
