PHOTOS: Rare Bunny Yeager Images at Dezer Collection Museum

Bunny Yeager is credited with discovering Bettie Page, inventing the bikini, and changing the course of 20th century photography. She began modeling swimsuits in Miami in the 1940s, but soon got behind the lens shooting her own self-portraits and establishing a career as a pinup photographer. Her glamor shots foreshadow other artists such as Cindy Sherman and Yasumasa Morimura, known for their own masquerade-based self-portraiture.

For the past three decades, her images have been largely overlooked. In 2010, however, her photographs enjoyed their first museum exhibit at Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol. Miami's Dezer Collection Museum has over 200 of Yeager's images on display - over half of which have never been seen before. Most are set in South Florida tropical locales: Yeager's Miami home, Miami Beach, and the now-defunct tourist attraction Africa USA in Boca Raton.

Bunny Yeager: Retrospective to the Future will be on display until February 29. Check out some of Yeager's photos from the exhibit:

Photos courtesy of Bunny Yeager and Dezer Collection Museum.