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HBC has noted the work of these photographers whose work includes many wonderful images of children over the ages, providing an enormous amount of information about contemprary fashions as well as other interesting aspects of childhood. Most of these noted photographers had careers which primarily focused on their own countries and thus are a great source of information on individual countries or in some cases specific regions within the country. Listing them chronologically is a little complicated as some began working late in life, but it is helpful for those interested in certain time frames. The only simple way of listing them is by date of birth, but often the chronology of their careers varies because they began woking in photography late in life and of course their longevity varied. Photographic images of children expanded exponentially in the 20th century. The Kodak Browniw introduced in 1900 meant that virtually anyone could take photographs. The snap shot exponentially increase the number and variety of photographic images. There were still a number of notable photographers who have left us fascinating images of childhood. And we see a much vwider view of the social spectrum. Increases in camera and emulsions also meant that children could be photographed in real life showing not only how they looked and the clothese they wore, but the many activities in which they engaged. Whole new photographic specoalties appeared, in this case the photo journalist, social conscious photograpy, and much more.
James Arthur was a nationally known photographer at the turn-of-the 20th century. He was originally a studio photographer. He partnered with a gentleman named (unknown first name) Philbric -- Arthur & Philbric had studios (at various times and concurrently) in Toledo, Ohio, Grand Rapids, Michigan (address from 1890 - 1894 was 21 Canal Street) and Detroit, Michigan. (The Arthur & Philbric Studios address was 204-206 Woodward Ave, Detroit, Michigan from 1894-95 to 1903-04.) There may have been other studios at other addresses and cities, We are still researching this possibility. The Arthur-Philbric partnership disolved in/about 1903 and James Arthur became the sole owner of what was then called Arthur Studios at the 204-206 Woodward Ave. address. We are not familiar with the 234 Woodward Ave. address. I suspect this was James Arthur's brother, also a photographer who, if our research is correct, specialized in child photography (but like any good photographer, would also photograph anyone willing to sit.) It could have also been his 'solo' studio address after the partnership dissolved. That entire area of Woodward Ave. in Detroit is now a canyon of Interstate Highway lanes. James Arthur unlike Bain was not involved in photoo journalism. Rthr in addition to stndard studio work, he created what he called 'art photography'. Basically it was genre impages that could be commercially printed in the perfectiomn of photo lithography. James Arthur died unexpectedly in 1912. His brother took over the business in name briefly but allowed trusted employees to continue the actual photographic work. He eventually sold the studio to one of the long time employees. Arthur Studios (from as early as 1907) also was a prolific producer of 'Art Photography' that was used in the relatively new business of calendar and reproductive art (often referred to as 'art for the masses, not the classes'). This was essentually what the painting world refers to as genre works. These were paper prints that could be framed and displayed in middle and lower class homes that could not afford to decorate with large portraits or decorative arts done in oils, water colors or pastels, i.e., 'original' art work vs. 'reproduced' art work.
Albert (Abraham) Kahn was a wealthy French banker and middle aged vefore he got interested in photography, atracted byb both travel exoeiebnces and the new Autochrome color process. His age would date him to 19th century photography, but photography only became a passion with him in the 20th century. So just as the Autochrome process appearwd, Kahn set out on an impossible quest to document every culture on the plannet--all in color. This of course was impossible, even for a man of his resources. He rose from humble Jewish origins. Hisfamily was expelled by the Germans from Alsace (1871), but through hard work and inteligence he navigated French bigotry and intolerance. At the time France was seen as more anti-Semetic than Germany. He became a partner in an important French bank which gave him the resources for his project. His banking wiork carried him to many countries. He was a hard-nosed banker with philantroopic insticts. He began giving travelm scolarshios. He had a vague idea of promoting human peace and understanding, but curiously shared his collection with very few. He housed it in his garden estate. Gardens of the world was another passion. His color images are some of the first color images of the many countries (at the time many swere colonis) that he and his team photographed. He called his project Archives of the Planet which became his real passion. It all began with a trip toJapan. Eventually he ammased a collectiion iof 70,000 color photographs from about 50 duifferent countries (1909-31) he project only ended when the Hreat Depression affected his finances. In old age, the Germans arrived again (1940). He died soon after, but his priceless collection survived the War.
People and places in England, especially London. Martin was a London street photograoher.
Frances Benjamin Johnston was thee only surviving child of wealthy and well-connected parents. She was born in Grafton, West Virginia (1864). The family moved to Washington, D.C. after the Civil War. Her family had the money to allow her to study art in Paris. When she returned home, she decided to become a photographer. She was one of the first important woman photographers outside of studio photographers. She began with studio portraiture and achieved some sccess as a professional photographer and businesswoman. She attracted a Washington clientele including presidents, diplomats, and other government officials. Her personal life was more inclined toward artistic, Bohemian circles. She began to establish a reputation in both the art and commercial worlds. She launched into photo-journalism one of the phoograohers who launched this branch of photography. She provided photograpohs to the Bain News Service (1890s-1900s). And with advances in lithography, she wrote illustrated articles for many magazines. She was active in pictorialist photo exhibitions and world’s fairs. Next she concentrated on architecture and gardens, producing a survey of historic buildings in the American South. She was interested in the Progressive era reforms. Johnston is perhaps best known today for her interest in education, especially the education of minotity groups. She documented education at the turn-of the 20th century, photographing children at public schools in Washington, D.C., the Tuskegee Institute (Alabama), the Hampton Institute (Virginia), and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (Pennsylvania).
American George Grantham Bain was born in Chicago during 1865. His parents were George Bain and Clara Mather. He was raised in St. Louis. He entered St. Louis University and graduated with a law degree (1890). He working for United Press. With an interest in photography, he took many wonderfulmperiod photographs. He is remembered today not only for these photographs, but for founding the first news photography service--Bain News Service (1898). He took and acquired a large archive of photographs for his news photo service. The archive included both portraits and human interest images as well as images of worldwide news events. His collection as might be guessed, was centered largely on New York City where Bain lived. The Bain News Service gradually accumulated a substantial archive covering people and events all over the world. The Bain collection expanded beyonf New York City by obtaining photographs from its photo service subscribers as part of their payment to Bain and his company. There are important images from the early-20th century, especially World War I and the Mexican Revolution. The collection is today part of the Library of Congress archive.
I. K. Inha , pseudonym of Konrad Into Nyström (1865-1930), seen by many as the most important of the early Finnish photographers. He was also a noted author, translator, and journalist. he is one of the grand masters of Finnish photography. He is often referred to as 'the national photographer' of Finland. Konrad was born in the village of Jäähdyspohja located in central Finland (1865). His father was the bailiff Johan Abraham Nyström and his mother Clara Charlotta Nyström (née Vikman). Inha moved to Hämeenlinna to study in the respected Lyceum of Hämeenlinna (1877). His studies in addition to the basic courses included additional languages and journalism. He graduated and moved to Helsinki and enrolled in the University of Helsinki to study aesthetics, Finnish language, and history (1884). After a year he changed his majors to geology, geography, and chemistry. All subjexts that would prove useful in his photograophic endecors. He did not earn a degree, but emerged a keen generalist and fluent in several languages. He pursued a career in journalism anbd soon found that ophotography fit into his career choice. He began working in the late-19th century and set out to document Finnish folk traditions wudely viewed, including old habits, customs, and landscapes. And then as Finland began to modernize in the early-20th century began tio capture that as well.
John Boyd (1865-1941) was an amateur photographer and railway employee in Toronto and Sarnia during the late-19th century and early 20th centuries. Boyd was born in Emyvale, County Monaghan, Ireland and immigrated along with his family to Toronto. He became interested in photographs as a young man in the 1890s. Boyd was a keen amateur naturalist and thus he spcialized in nature photography. Interestingly he was also interested in urban photograph and is noted for is photographs of Toronto buildings and city street scenes. He won numerous awards. Here we have a photograph of Boy Scouts who got 'caught' swimming near Point Edward, Ontario, 1911.
Edward Sheriff Curtis is an American ethnologist and mist claimed photographer of Native American peoples. He was born in Whitewater Minnesota which at the time was the frontier (1868). His father was a minister, farmer, and American Civil War veteran. As a result of his military service, he proved to weak to sucessfuly operated hus farm and Edward grew up in poverty. He left school in the 6th grade. He developed an interest in photography and built a camera. He appreticed as a photographer's assistance in St. Paul (1874). The family moved to Washington state where Curtis worked in photographic studios as a parner. Curtis met and photographed Princess Angeline (c1820–96), aka Kickisomlo, the daughter of Chief Sealth of Seattle (1895). This was his first portrait of a Native American. The focus of his career quickly changed from operating a photographic studio to creating a photographic record of the vanishing West and Native American people. Important publicatioins began publishing his work. Most of his Native American photographs were taken after the turn-of-the 20th centuy. As an act of serendipity, just as he began his life's work, lithography created the ability to reproduce photographic imges in newsppers, magazines, and books. J.P. Morgan provided Curtis with $75,000, a huge amount, at the time, to produce a series on Native Americans (1906). The result is a stunning collection of Native American images.
W.J. Byrne operated a popular Richmond (London suburb) photographic studio during the late 19th century. He specialized in photographing children and produced thousands of such portraits, both CDVs and cabinent cards. He was a highly regarded photographer and phoographed not only the English royal children, bit the Queen, Prince of Wales, anf Kaiser Wilhelm II as well. We note a fascinating article that he wrote for The Harmsworth Magazine (1898-99) in which he describes his career as a child photographer including the technique he used to photograph thousands of children in his studio. He produced both CDVs and Cabinet cards. His portraits include many traditional shots as well as a variety of more artistic portaits.
We have next to no inkrmationn on Herbert Geddes was a manager for G.R. Gregg and Company, importers and exporters, based in Vancouver and Winnipeg. The company sent him to facilyate trade operations. He was based in Yokohama, the port for Tokyo (1908-18). Geddes retuned to vancouver and was the manager for Gregg and Company until the mid-1950s. Apperantly he was avid photographer and has left us a wonderful collection of life in Japan during the early-20th century. His photographics are glass-plate colorized transparencies. we see scenery, street scenes, chikldren, workers, farming, fishing, silk production, stone carvers, wood carvers, metal workers, potters, and artists. These 'Yokohama photographs' were sold to foreign tourists between about in the late 19th century brfore postcards were generally available. We are not sure why Geddesc decided ti wirk in this traditional medium, but they are avaluable addituon to the Japanese photographic record.
For around 70 years, 800 rolls of early nitrate film sat in sealed barrels in the basement of a shop. Now miraculously rediscovered and restored, the Mitchell & Kenyon Collection is an amazing visual record of everyday life in Britain at the beginning of the 20th century. It is the most exciting film discovery of recent times and promises to radically transform British film history. This link is broken. We are not sure if there is a working ink to this collection.
Clarence Hudson White was an importat self-taught American photographer who open a school and was and a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement. He was raised in small Ohio towns. He bvecanme intersred in photigraphy after after visiting the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893) he seriously pursued photography. A aesult of the quality of his photiography, he impressed the photograohic communiy with images thatv were seen tio capture the spirit of America in the early-20th century. He became associated with Alfred Stieglitz. Both worked to estabish photography as an art form. White noved his family moved to New York City o be closer to Stieglitz and the photographers associated with him. White becane interested in teaching photograophy. He opened an uinformal school in Maine (1910). He opened another more formal photographic school in New York, the first effort to teach photography as an art firm. His teaching methods were unorthodox, but attracted many students who would make important contributions to American photography. As a result of his teaching, his own work declined. He was also deeply disturbed by World War I because of his Socialist views. Pacifism was an imoprtant tennant of Socialism. He died in Mexico where he took some of his students in an effirt to resume his own photographic work.
Etheldreda Janet Laing was an Enhlish photographer who is especially noted for her embrace of the French Autochrome, the early color process. She took her first Autochrom photograph in 1908, shortly after the process appeared (1904). Etheldreda was born in Ely (1872). she was was the daughter of Richard Winkfield, head of the King's School. Etheldreda After studying drawing at Cambridge. Sghe married the barrister Charles Miskin Laing as a young woman and the couple lived in Oxford (1895). They wound up at Bury Knowle House in Headington, an Oxford neighborhood. Her husband gave here the econmic freedom to pursue her interests. The same interest in deawing attracted her to photography. She installed her own darkroom (late-1890s). With the adventb of Autochrome, the first color process usable by most photographers. Laing showed an immediate interest in the Autochrome color process when the plates first became commercially available (1907). She took many photographs of her daughters (Janet and Iris), miostly in the family garden. As a result of phtographing her daughters and her great care with compositions, and their lovely garden.
Lewis Hine is one of the most notable photographers to use the medium to promote social reform. He was not the first photographer to exploit the medium for social causes. He was, however, one of the photograohers to use it most effectively. Some of his most powerful images are of immigrants taken on Ellis Island. It is interesting to note how they were dressed on entering America from Europe at the turn of the century. The sailor suit was a prominent garment. Perhaps even more importantly, Hine's documentation of child workers were instrumental in effecting the labor reforms. His captions for his photographs provide a wealth of information about the working conditions, incomes, ages, sizes, and lives of the children that he photographed. Most of the images of the child workers show them wearing either knee pants or overalls. Hine worked as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), documenting working and living conditions of children in the United States during 1908-21.
Marcus Adams was born into a Reading photographic family (1875). He was a npted British society photographer who was especially admired for his portraits of children, most prominantly royal children. His father, Walkter Adams, operted a Reading photogrphic studio. Adams learned about photography from his father. He began his own career working as an architectural photographer for the British Archaeological Society. His phoographs illustrated tnhe vooks published by noted antiquarian C.E. Keyser. He began to develop a London society clientelle. He formed an association with Bertram Park and Parks' wife Yvonne Gregory. They formed the 'Three Photographers' group after World War I (1920). They were based in fashionable Mayfair. They worked independently, but shared facilities and printing staff. Adams gained such a reputation that the Duchess of York chose him for the first official photographs of the infant Princess Elizabeth The subsequent 1934 photograph of Princess Elizabeth at the age of 8 was used as the portrait for the $20 banknote of the Cnanadian 1935 Canadian dollar series. Adams had many other sittings with royal children, the last being Princess Anne (1956). Of course Adams' clientelle were not exclusively royals, but the royal connection drew awide swath of London society to Adams. Other notable children included, Christopher Robin Milne, John Julius Norwich, and Simone Prendergast. Adams' son and grandson continued the fgamily's photographic traditions.
William Bullard was a Massachusetts photographer who worked as a photographer without a studio. Very little is know about him, but he left an extraordinary body of work--an extensive photographic record of African Americans at the turn-of-the 20th century and he esrly-20h century. Most of the images depict a strong proud African-American community in Beaver Brook, Massachusetts. William who was white was born in Worcester, Massachusetts (1897-1917). While we know little of his early life, we know that he worked for two decades as a photographer without studio. Hus images are well posed and constructed. Yet we have no information on him being an apprentice or working in a studio. He took his photograph outside his clients' home. He may have traveled with his camera on his bike, but all of Beaver Brook was within walking distance. We are left to wonder why so many of his portraits are of his African American neighbors. They along with some Native American were captured on film in their yards, gardens, and living rooms. There are no studio images. Bullard began his photography career at age 18 in Worcester (1894). He began listing himself as a photographer in the 1901 Worcester City Directory (1891). A the time he was living with his brothers and his mother on Mayfield Street (now Maple Tree Lane). The area is known as the Beaver Brook. Many of his photographs were taken there. Another unanswered question is why African-Americans comprised such a large part if his Beaver Brook images--40 percent. This even though they were a tiny part of the the population of Beaver Brook area where he lived. He and his family moved to North Brookfield (1908). The images are also unique and rare in that he recorded many of their names. Most of studio photography that has survived has done so without the sitters' names. Particularly notable are the many images of proud African American fathers and the families they created.
Richard Samuel Roberts is the most important Afro-American photographer emerging from the south during the Jim Crow era. He was born in South Carolina (1936). He was a self-taught photographer who operated a studio in Fernandina, Florida. He earned a reputation as a talented portaist. And he left an important legecy of a rich photographic record of the Black community during the Jim Crow era. It shows a much more nuanced view than the steroptypical view of abject poverty and economic failure. He had to study photograpjy on his own while working as a stevedore and fireman laborer before he could save the money to open his own studio. He did not specialize in children, but left many images of southern Black children in his archive. A reader writes, "I found a book about Afro-American photographer Richard Samuel Roberts. The photographs he took show the Afro-Americans and their families. They are not poverty stricken like we see in 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' or the New Deal Depression photographers. They have cars, live in pleasant neighbourhoods, and dress in the fashions of the times. Not what I had thought!" Or reader makes an important point. This is not to say there was not real poverty. Or the New Deal photographrs like Dorthea Lange and the other Frm Security Administration photographers did not acurately depict the condition of many Black Americans. It is to say that the real state of Black America is much more nuanced than often portrayed. It also speaks to the point that among the victims of the Ku Klux Klan was not the Black family. This is a much more recent phenomenon.
Hugo Brehme was born in Germny (1882). In Mexico he is often referred to as Hugo Brehme Casasola. We do not know anything about his early life. He began his photographic career in Germny. He anbd his arrived in Mexico with his photographic equipment. He planned only a temporary stay, but spent the rest of his life there. World War I may have been a factor (1914-18). Brehme is regarded as one of the most important eraly Mexican photograohetrs. His potarit of Revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata in Cuernavaca is seen as his masterwork. Brehme opened a photographic studio in Mexico City -- Fotografía Artística Hugo Brehme. It was operating (1912). We are not sure just when it was opened. Germans played a role in the early photogrphic history of many countries in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. He was one of the most prestious photographers in Mexico City. He worked for 40 years. Since the studio was functioning at least since 1912, he was an important photographer of the Revolution (1910-20). Brehme did not confine his work to the studio, but began working outside taking large numbers of ethnographic and landscape photographs. This began mostly after the Revolution. He reportedly traveled with bulky equipment into remote, including mountainous regions. His work is an important addition to the Mexican photographic record. There are imgaes of rural life, scenic landscapes, railways, monuments and Aztec and other Meso-American archeological sites. His work was used in tourist guides and travel magazines (including National Geographic as tourism began to develop after the Revolution. Many of his photograohs were used for postcards which became a tourist mainstay. He mentored Manuel Alvarez Bravo. one of Medico's most important photogrphers.
Fredrik Daniel Bruno was a town engineer in Hudiksvall, Hälsingland, in central Sweden. He was also an enthusiastic amateur photographer. He provides us with many early color photographiv images when as part of his job, he moved around Sweden during World War II and the post-war era (1943-early-50s). his involved business and holiday trips. He used both Kodachrome and Agfacolor slide film. During and after the War, German Agfa film became difficult to obtain. Understanably, his major interest was landscape, buildings, and city street scenes. But the Swedish people are pictured in these images. They are some of the earlist Swedish color images. He also took pictures in Norway. This was a pivotal time in Norwegian and Swedish historyas the two countries were recovering from the War and building both a welfare state and prosperous modern econmy.
Heinrich Hoffmann was born in Fürth (1885). The family business was ophotograohy and was known for portraits of royaly. We know nothing about his childhood. Hoffman open a studio in Munich before the World war I (1910). During the War he was a photograher with the Bac=varian Army. He was an early recruit to the NAZI Party (1920). Hitler chose him to be the Party's official photographer. Hoffman took an estimated 2.5 million photographs of Hitler. Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels is most associated with propagating the public image of Hitler and the NAZIs. Hoffman may have played an even more important role in creating Hitler's public image. He was more than a photographer, but became a personal friend of Hitler. Once Hitler seized control of Germany (1933), Hoffman's photographs became widely distributed. They were used for postage stamps, postcards, posters and picture books. Hoffmann's suggested to Hitler that they both hould receive royalties. As the images were used for postage stamps as well as widely dustributed publications, the royalty payments were substantial. Hoffmann married Therese "Nelly" Baumann (1911). They had two children. Henriette ("Henny") was born (1913). Heinrich ("Heini") was born (1916). Henriette married Reichsjugendführer (Hitler Youth Leader) Baldur von Schirach. Hoffman photographed many HJ events and activities. Von Schirach wrote the introductions to many of Hoffmann's photographic books. Therese Hoffmann died suddenly (1932). Hoffman during the Third Reich wrote several richly illustrted books on Hitler. Two of the best known are: The Hitler Nobody Knows (1933) and Jugend um Hitler (1934). He was especially productive in 1938: Hitler in Italy, Hitler befreit Sudetenland, and Hitler in seiner Heimat. He wrote his last book in 1939, shortly before World War II broke out: Das Antlitz des Führers. We are not sure why he did not continue his work on Hitler during the War. He married Erna. It was he and Erna who introduced Eva Braun to Hitler. She was working in his Munich studio. The Allies arrested Hoffman after the War. He was tried and found guilty for NAZI profiteering and senteced to a 4-year prison term. He was released and returned to Munich (1950). He died at the age of 72 (1957). The United States seized an archive of his photographs which are now in the collection of the National Archives.
Harry Lachman is not best known as a photographer, but we think that this was his best work in both still photogrsphy and film and it was done in France, not America. Harry was born in La Salle, Illinois (1886). He was educated at the University of Michigan. His first artistic effort was as magazine and book illustrator. Great strides had beenmade in lithograhy. He produced four beautiful color illustrations fot a book written Charles Harcourt Ainslie Forbes-Lindsay, John Smith, Gentleman Adventurer (1907). Lachman's heart was in art. And like many young Americans of like mind, he headed off to Paris to develop his art (1911). He began working in the post-impressionist style and was beginning to make a reputation. He was a fledgling artist and had to support himdelf. He got a job designing movie sets which launch a long association with movies. Then the Germans declared war and launched an invasioin through Belgium toward Paris (1914). It was at this time that he came in contact with Anne Morgan and her interest in helping wounded soldiers and refugees. Morgan had him take photograophs and create films about the regugees returinhg to Piicardy (1917). he result was photograohic masterworks. The French Government awarded him the Légion d'Honneur (1922). We are not sure to what extent it was for art or his work with Morgan and the refugees, probably both. He worked in French films after the War, but then moved Hollywood (1933). He was involved in large numbers of Hollywood movies. He began to focus on painting again (1940).
Percy Loomis Sperr was born in Michigan (1889), the grandson of German immigrants. His brother and sister were died fter contracting meningitis. he disease left Percy crippledfor life. He had to use crutches to get around which probbly in part explains his focus on structures. Sperr married a German immigrant named Louise and they had a son Robert (1920). Sperr aspired to be an author and moved his family to New York. He intended to use phoitography to illustrate his stories. But Sperr soon found that while he was able to sell his photographs, there was little market for his articles which seems to have bothered him. His photographs sold, his stories didn’t. It probably never sat all that well with him that he wasn’t able to pursue his real love which was writing. His photography led to a contract with the New York Public Library. He became known as the 'Official Photographer for the City of New York'. Thus beginning in 1924, he tirelessly combed the five New York boroughs, capturing images of the city for posterity, buildings, other structures, and neighborhoods. As part of his street photography, he took more than 30,000 photographs of New York and New Yorkers. Sperr was relentless. He explored every major street, every neighborhood, every bridge, every highway, every building, basically every corner of the city. He has left an invaluable body of images depicting the life of the city in the inner-War era. His photographic efforts was conducted through the early-1940s. He covered all five boroughs, but his favorite subject was Staten Island where he lived. He called it the Cinderella of boroughs. He also gave special attention to the port areas of the city and the ships there. Children were not a major focus of his work which concentrated more on structures than people, but in compiling his photographic collection we see countless people, including children.
Martin Chambi was born in a small village in the Andes and is Peru's most important photographer from Peru. He is especially noted for his classic images of the ndes and the Andean people. Manu of his photographs are from Cuzco. This of course was the ancient Incan capital. We do not have many examples of his work, but we note a 1935 portrait of some children in a courtyard.
Remie Lohse was born in Puarto Rico (1892). At the time Puerto Rico was still part of the Spanish Empire. He moved to Denmark and studied painting at the Academy in Copenhagen. He emigrated to the United States (1928). He did do some painting while still in Denmark. He is primrily known, however for his photography. He became a popular freelance features and advertising photographer djurijng the 1930s. His photograpgs were carried in Vogue, including covers. Vogue was the major glamor magazine at the time. His photographs are of a very high standard, little masterpieces. Gilbert Seldes in his book First Modern Photographic Book of New Yorkfeatured Lohse. He published a book, The Miniature in Professional Hands (1939). Much of hos work is glamor fashions, but we also notice genre work--most of well-to people. There are some images of childrn. Most of his work depict, the well-to-do, perhaps becuse of his glamor connections. We notice one beutiful portrait of two farm worker boys. While we notice a great deal of work in the 30s, we have not yer found any from the 40s. We also notice some short stories. Strangely for a photograoher that was prominent enough to do Vogue covers, we have found virtully nothing about him on the internet. LohseHe died in 1947.
André Kertesz was American of of Hungarian ancestry. He was born in 1895, but we have no details on his childhood at this time or the clothes that he wore as a boy. He is one of the most prolific photographers of the 20th century. Like Cartier-Bresson (??) or Doisneau (French), he is one of the great masters of humanistic photography, which sympathetically focuses on the life of common people. Kertesz during the 1930s lived and worked in Paris and published several collections of his photographs. One of his best known is Enfants published in 1933. Some of the photographs were taken in the ckassroom and wonderfully record French school life.
Russia was very active in the area of photography. A Russian experiment created a wonderful, if complicated, color photography system. There were also a number crative photographers. Russian photographers participated in important movements of the time, ncluding romanticism, constructivism and the avant-garde, As a result of their work there is a wondrful body of wotk realistically depicting life in Tsarist Russia. The Bolsheviks upon seizing power demanded that photographers create images depicting a true worker's paradice an early use of photogaphy as a propaganda tool. Photographers who wanted to pusue their profession had to comply with Government edicts which were not always consistent. Lenin took a personal interest in propaganda and set out to ensure that photographers worked to promote the Revolution. There was in the 1920s still some room for creative photography. One of the best known early Soviet photo journalists was Leonid Shokin, whose work hained him some fame in the 1920s. Communist ideological control on photography became even more pronounced in the late-1920s when Stalin gained control of the Party and Soviet state. Stalin strongly promoted the concept of Soviet relism. We begin to see very idealized images of workers, farmers, atthletes, and soldiers. By the 1930s, all Soviet profesional photographic work looked alike. Unlike some photographers sentenced to the Gulag, Shokin was not arrested. Most of his archive, however, was destroyed. He had to watch the NKVD destroy over 5,000 of his images. Many of the images of the Soviet Union survived only because they reached the West.
Dorothea Lange is certainly one of America's greatest documentary photographers. Along with Mathew Brady and Lewis Hein, we would put her at the pinacle of American photo journalism. The three worked at different times. As a young woman she planned to be a teacher, one of the few professions available to women. She attended the New York Training School for Teachers (1914-17). While there she changed her mind and decided to become a photographer. Photographer Arnold Genthe influenced her. She signed up for a photography course taught by Clarence H. White at Columbia University. Lange moved to San Francisco (1918). She she set up a portrait studio (919) and it proved sucessful. One of here best known works during this period is the Clayburgh Children. Although sucessful, she began to see studio photograpjy somewhat boring (Late-1920s). She began experimenting with landscape and plant photography, but the results were not what she was after. After the Stock Market crash (1929). Lange decided to begin working with documentary pgotography. Lange is the most famous of the photographers that worked to document the impact of the Depression on ordinary Americans. She captured renouned images of rural America, including share cropers and migrant farm workers, affected by a kille combination of the Drepression and Dust Bowl. She was one of the photographers that worked with Presidebt Roosevelt's New Deal, specifically the U.S. Farm Security Administration (FSA). She took mny photogeaphs of the Oakies espcaping the Dust Bowl and migrating west to California. They survived under dreadgul conditions in camps set up there. Her photogeaphs appeared in mass circulation magazines like Life and today are the images of the Great Depression that contine to form our concept of thatveconomic disaster. Her images vividly depict the impact of the Depression, but unfortunately not what caused it.
Charles Weever Cushman was an amateur photographer and Indiana University graduate. He lived at various times in Chicago and dedicated his life to capturing photographic images of mid-20th (1938-69). His focus was on America. The mages thus span the Depression, World War II homefront, and post-War expansion. He did some very interested work in other countries. His methodology was street photography. Cushman provides some of the earliest color images of America and other countries. Photography at the time was black abd white providing images in shades of gray. Cushman's work is a welcomed color additiion to a world of gray. After World War II (1941-45) color photography begins to grow, but was expensive, only becoming common in the 1970s.
Cushman worked from his car and there are many road-side and street images. The project affected his marriages. His wives apparently did not share his single-minded pursuit of his project and life on the road. He began during the Depression with a Ford coup and went through a series of cars. There are very few American color images from the 1930s and even in the 40s, photography was mostly black and white. Many of his images are unpolished, unglamorous. but remorlessly honest views of America and its people, both urban and rural. His road-side/street approach means that the imagery is rather focused on lower-income Amnericans. His work is a tremendous historical archive of American cultural life. He bequeathed about 14,500 Kodachrome color slides to Indian University.
G. Lekegian, an Armenian, moved to Cairo from Istabul. He set up a studio in Cairo (1887). Armenians dominated the early photographic industry in Egypt. Few Arabs new anything about photography. He rapidly acquired a reputation for the quality of his work. Lekegian ususlly signed his photographs "Photographic Artistique G. Lekegian & Co". This was French based company. He won the Gold Medal at the International Photography Exhibition in Paris in 1892, and the Grand Prize at the International Exhibition in Chicago (1893). His work is an important record of Arab life in Egypt and other North African countries. Some of the best 19th century imsges of Egypt were produced by Lekegian. His work is found in many major photographic collections. He located his studio, near the legendary Shepheard's Hotel. As his reputsation grew, he turned the area between Qasr al-Nil Street and Opera Square into a golden triangle of Cairo photography.
Vishniac came from a wealthy Russian Jewish family. He was born in his grandparents' dacha near Saint Petersburg, in the town of Pavlovsk (1897). He grew up in Moscow. His family was granted the rare privlige for HJews of living in Moscow by Tsarist officials. Roman was a remarkable student. He was at first home schooled anf then at age 10 years enrolled in a private school where he won awards for scholarship. He had a wide range of interests which include photography and various academic disciplines including biology. He was given a camera at a young age and when also given a microscope, he began taking photographs through it. The family fled to Berlin after the Revolution because of rising anti-Semitism by anti-Bolshevik elements (1918). He worked to help support the family and studied as well. The family remained in Germany after the NAZI take over (1933). I am not sure of his citizenship status, but the NAZIs revoked the citizenship of Jews as pat of the NHuremberg race laws (1935). His early photoigraphy and speaking engagements attracted enough attentiion that the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) commissioned him to photograph the Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe to use for a fund-raising drive to support these economically deprived communities under pressure of rising anti-Semitism. It is the best visual record of Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe just before they were destroyed in the NAZI Holocaust. He focused on poor Jews in the mountainous villages/shtetls and urban ghettos (in the pre-NAZI sence). Somehow all this was done while Vishniac was still living in Berlin. He developed and printed all his photographs in the home dark room at his Berlin apartment. He took several trips to Eastern Europe (1935-38), still working for the JDC. Vishniac was extrodinarily brave, approaching wreckless in the pursuit of images. He managed to sneak into the Zbaszyn interment camp in Germany near the Polish border (1938). German authorities were deporting Polish Jews who had been living in Germany. They were being deported to Plland, but the Polish authorities were not copperating and thus were being held in Zbaszyn under dreadful condituiions. He photographed the "filthy barracks" there for 2 days and than escaped. Vishniac forwarded his photographs to the League of Nations as proof of what the Germans were doing and how Jews were being treated.
He is best know for his work with the JDC and the moving photographs he prioduced. He took over 16,000 phottographs, but only 2,000 survive. They had to be secretly brought out of NAZI Germany. After Kristallnacht, his wife and children moved to Sweden (1939). They stayed his his wife's parents and Vishniac joined them.
His parents also managed to get out of Germany. He met his parents in Nice just befire the War. (Summer 1939). After the War and the German occupation of France he went to France again on a Latvian passport. He was arrested by the French police, but the JDC and his wife got him out of an internment camp and he managed to get to Lisbon and fly to America. An archive of his work is housed at the International Center of Photography.
Edward Fitzmaurice Chambré Hardman was an Irish-born photographer, who primarily worked based for most of his career in Liverpool, England. He was a landscape photographer by advocation, but primarily dependent on portraiture. Edward Hardman was born in Foxrock, Dublin (1898)., Ireland. He was the third child and only son of a keen amateur photographer -- Edward Hardman.
Hardman described his father as 'a land agent for various estate owners and landlords in County Dublin'. He also had family connections with the British Raj. Hardman insisted thst "Two ... kinsmen (one on my fathers side, and one on my mothers) have held the office of Viceroy of India."
Edward took his first photographs when he was 9 years old. He won won many photographic competitions during his time at St. Columba's College in County Dublin. He would take many dramtic powerful landscape portraits, including shots of the Himslyasda, but his place in photographic history is the record he left us of Liverpool. This is primarily urban landscape, but he also captured important images of the people--including the children.
Alfred Eisenstaedt was born in Germany (1898). As a boy, Alfred was interested in music. For his 13th birthday, an uncle gave him a folding Eastman Kodak Number Three canera and he was hooked. He served in he Germany Army during World War I. he became one of the wield's great photographer and photojournalist. He began his photogaphic career in Germany prior to the NAZIs seizng power. He worked part time and wasnoticed. He became a full-time photographer (1929). The Associated Press in Germany. He also worked under contract for Illustrierte Zeitung published by Ullstein Verlag which at thetime was the world's largest publishing house. One of his most recognizable photographs was a waiter at the ice rink of the Grand Hotel in St. Moritz (1932). While he did not produce a lot of World War II images, he produced some of the most iconic photographa of the War. He photographed the first meeting between Adolf Hitler and Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in Italy (1933). One especially chiiling photograph was of NAZI propagandist Joseph Goebbels at the League of Nations in Geneva (1933). Goebbels was intially friendly, but Eisenstaedt captured him scowling after he learned that Eisenstaedt was Jewish. Mussolini invaded Ethiopia (1935). Eisenstaedt still working for Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, took over 3,500 photographs in Ethiopia. Eisenstaedt was Jewish abd his family fled Germany, reaching safety in America (1935). He joined fellow AP émigrés Leon Daniel and Celia Kutschuk to found the PIX Publishing photo agency. The next year Time founder Henry Luce purchased Life magazine and asked Eisenstaedt to join the new magazine as one of its original staff of four photographers, including Margaret Bourke-White and Robert Capa. Eisenstaedt at the very beginning of the War took one of the iconic images illuistrating the horrors to come, a Polish girl murdered by a Luftwaffe pilot. At the end of the War he took a poignet portrait of a woman and her baby in Hiroshima (1945). His photograph of a sailor kissing a Woman in Times Square on V-J Day is one of the most famous photographs ever taken. Eisenstaedt continued working as a staff photographer (through 1972) He became famous for photographing celeberties. But he captued ordinary people as well A good example is an Ecuadoren market (1966). Although Eisenstaedt did not especially focus in children few photograpohers have so perfectly captured childhood joy as Eisenstaedt did in a image of French children at pupet theateer (1963).
Voula Papaioannou is a very significant Greek photographer. She was one of the pioneer women photographers in Greece and a contemprary of Nelly's. She began working as a photographer during the 1930s, concentrating at first on studies of landscapes, monuments and archaeological exhibits. She photographed the Greek-Italian War (1940-41) and after the end of World War II, the Greek Civil War (1948). Her most important work is the hand made-4 copies only "To lefkoma tis peinas" (The album of starvation) with photographs of emanciated children in Axis (German and Italian) occupied Greece during World War II. The images of children in Axis occupied Greece (along with those of the concentration camps) are among the most shocking we have ever seen. She later portrayed a realist view of the post war Greece. Voula Papaioannou's work represents the trend towards "humane photography" that arose as a result of the abuse of human rights during the war. Her camera captured her compatriots' struggle for survival with respect. She is often compared to Lewis Hine and his work of working children. All her unpublished photographes were donated by her to Benaki Museum in Athens.
Elli Seraidari (known as Nelly's) is by far the most famous Greek photographer of all time. She was born in Aidini of Asia Minor Asia (link here) and after 1922 she went to study photography in Germany. Her teachers were the most famous German photographers of the era. In 1924 she came to Greece where she opened her studio. From 1927 until the outbreak of World War II Nelly's travelled throughout Greece, documenting the entire panorama of Greek life. Nelly's went to the opening of the 1939 World exposition of New York where the Greek pavillion hosted a big collage of her photographs and stayed there as a self exiled artist when the NAZIs invaded and occupied Greece in 1941. She returned to Athens 27 years later. Nelly's received numerous international awards (in Brussels, Canada, Stockholm, Paris etc). Perhaps her most famous work are the nude photographs of the Russian ballet dancer Nicolska in Parthenon of Acropolis (1920s) and the cover of Life Magazine (December 16, 1940). Nelly's also took a lot of childrens portraits in her studios in Athens and New York. She also photographed a lot of boys working as shepherds in rural Greece. One of her most important album is the one with the life of refugees (mainly the children) of Asia Minor in Greece (1925). Nelly's left a body of work which remains exemplary from both an artistic and a technical viewpoint and which represents a valuable legacy to the photographers of today.
Julien Hequembourg Bryan was born Titusville, Pennsylvania (1899). He wa a noted American photographer, filmmaker, and documentarian. Bryan was raised in a devout Presbyterian family with a long missionary. After graduating high school (1917), he volunteered with American Field Service for the French Army durung World War I. He drive an ambulance in Verdun and the Argonne, two major battles. When h returne hime he wrote a book describing his exeriences--Ambulance 464which he illustrated with his own photographs. He later took photographs documenting daily life in Poland, the Soviet Union, and NAZI Germany (1935-39). Heo captured the everyday life, work, and culture of individuals and communities. He was on a train to Warsaw when the Germans invaded Poland (Septenber 1, 1939). He was able to getb out of Warsaw leave during a brief truce allowing citizens of neutral countries to escape. This geant through NAZI Germany. He managed to hide his films in the chemical container of a gas mask. His photographs taken nin a besieged Warsaw documented the the truth about the German invasion. He produced a documentary film ('Siege') depicting Poland's defense of their capital against the NAZI onslaught. We archived several of his photographs in our CIH webite before we knew who the photorapher was. After the War, Bryan returned to Poland (1946). He was part of an official UNRRA delegation. His Kodachrome footage of a destroyed Gdańsk was some of the first post-war film of the city. Bryn retirned in and published one hundred of his 1939 Wasaw photographs (1958). As part of a project with the daily newspaper Express Wieczorny thy tried to idntify the people in the photographs.
Merl La Voy took all over the world over a period of at least 20 years, beginning at the close of World War I. We have few details at this time. From what we can gather, La Voy provided images to Eastman, Keystone, and National Geographic, along with various newspapers. The photos show costumes, landscapes, artifacts, and customs from places as varied as Greece, Hungary, Serbia, Turkey, India, China, New Zealand, naval ships, and the American West. The World War I era images are aerial reconnaissance views with official markings. A number of the images are stereographic, including those of the U.S.S Omaha.
We have not been able to find much informtion about Thaddeus Wilkerson. All that we know about him was that he created a visual image of a booming New York City in the early-20th century. He shot cityscapes with its sky scrapers, waterfront, bridges, buildings, and mounments, just about everythig except the people. And he publish over 400 postcards of the city creating an impressive visual record of a city becoming the center of the word economy. Among his images we have found one photograph of children, Oswald and Frieda Bank in 1910, perhps family friends or neighbors.
A reader tells us, "I have been rsearching photograpohers. One you do not mention is Bader Wood, a business man and amateur photographer in Mississippi durung the turn of the 20th century. The Rock Island County Historical Sociaty has a large number of his photos, including several of a local family, maybe his own? One of the children aged about 9 years appears repeadedly, and appears to be a boy in dresses or perhaps pinafores. The librarian refers to the child as a 'girl' in all but one photo. There is a younger child also with the elder,in several photos who is definitely a girl. The child looks very boyish to me." Of course some girls haf short hair so it is difficut to be certain in these unidentified photographs. But the child very well could be a boy.
William Hillcourt was born in Denmark as Vilhelm Hans Bjerregaard Jensen (1900). He moved to the United states as a young man. He was an enthusiatic Scouter from the very begging of the Scouting moverment. From the beginning of Danish Scouting, Vilhelm signed on (1910). he was continuously active in Scouting, both in Denmark and the United states. He traveled all over the world teaching and training both Scouts and adult Scouters. Bill began a career in pharmacy, but soon realied that Scouting was his calling. He decided to visit Scouting groups in other countries and the bring the best ideas back to Debmark. He traceled all over Eurpe abd fially reached merica (1926). A short visit turned into a new home when the BSA recognizing his skills and knoldge of Scoutng hired his for its permanrnt staff. He had a profound influence n the Boy scouts of America (BSA) and earned many of Scouting's highest honors. His influence can be clearly seen in the BSA program and methods as well as a ibstanial number of publications and mannuals. He became known as 'Green Bar Bill'. He was a was an amazingly priductive authr prolific writer and teacher, especially in oodcraft, troop and patrol structure, and training. He edited three editions of the BSA's official Boy Scout Handbook with over 12.6 million copies printed. He also was responsible for many her Scouting-related books and numerous magazine articles--especially the BSA monnthly magazine, Boys' Life. He developed and promoted the American adaptation of the British Wood Badge adult scout leader training program. But in addition he was also a prolific photographer, leaving a vast visual record of American Scouting.
We have notice German photographs from the 1920s and ealy-1930s stamped "Bild: Ernst Grunwald". We believe he was born about 1900, perhaps some time in the 1890s. We believe he was a photographer who founded a photographic company. It appears to be more than a studio. We thought that this was simply a studio. A German dealer tells us that Grunwald operated a German World War II propaganda company. We norice what looks like photographs before the NAZIs seized power (1933). They are not studio portraits, but rather genre photographs, some of children. While they are date, the fact that we see boys in group activities without Hitler Youth uniforms suggests that they were taken before the NAZI seizure of power. Prsumably, Grunwald was hired by the Propanda Ministry or the Whermacht to produce photographs before and during the War. We are unable to find any biographical informatrion about him. Perhaps German readers will know more.
Leo Kraft was a photographer in Ohio during the early-20th century. We do not know much about him. He was a very talented amateur that left a wonderful collection of photogaphs depicting contemporary life in small-town Ohio. His photos are wonderful pieces of art. Leo's son was an popular subject of his photography. He is very useful for HBC because he left many fanily and child photographs showing both fashions and life style.
Margaret Fay Shaw was born in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania (1903). She was the youngest in a family of five sisters. She was interested in music from an early age, begiining with the piano. She lost her parents atb an early age. As a teen ager she atternded St. Bride's School in Helensburgh, Scotland. She was introduced to Gaelic song and and folklore and began learninhg Gaelic. She was enchanted by a performance by song collector Marjory Kennedy-Fraser. After returning to Amerrica she decided to become a folklorist and returned to Scotland and came to the Hebrides. She settled on Lochboisdale on South Uist living with the Campbell family (1929). She married John Lorne Campbell and they on Barra, Outer Heberdies. They moved to Canna, in the Small Isles archipelago, Inner Hebrides. They lived there the rest of their kives. In addition to collecting and performing, Gaelic somg, she took up photographing, leaving us a wonderful collection of images of life on the islands.
Herbert List was born in Hamburg (1903). Hamburg is Germany's principal seaport and his family were prosperous merchants. Following the family tradition, he began an apprenticeship with a Heidelberg coffee dealer (1921). He also studied literature and art history at Heidelberg University. He worked for his father as a coffee dealer which involved travel aboroad to cofee growing regions (1924-28). He began taking photographs at this time as a kind of hobby. His artistic leanings led to meeting Andreas Feininger (1930). Feininger helped lead List into a more artistic direction with his photography. It was Feininger
who suggested that he use the Rolleiflex, a more advanced camera which helped him give more attention to composition. His photography shows the influence of both the surrealist and artistic movement. It is at this time that List begins to develop his charateristic stark style. He begins with still life and friends. He describes his effort as an attempt to capture the magical essence inhabiting and animating the world of appearances. The NAZIs seized power (1933). A few years after he leaves Germany (1936). He was no politically active, but he was homosexual, one of the groups the NAZIs targeted. It is at this time, forced to make a living abroad that he turns his up to this time a hobby into a profession. He worked in Paris and tgen London. He met George Hoyningen-Huene, who helps him get jobs with Harper's Bazaar. He also worked for other important magazines, including Vogueand Life. While financially rewarding, List did not find fashion photographer artistically fulfilling. He is best known for his photographs of boys and young men, some of which is mildly homo-erotic. List is an important artistic photographer, but less important for HBC than photigraphers like Hine because his images are mostly posed.
Most noted photographers for the firsr century after photographyt was invented were men. This did not change to any extent until the 1930s. And one of the most important of the griound breaking fenale phtograohers is the remarkable Margaret Bourke-White. Margaret White qa born in New York City (1904). Her contributiion was in photo-journalism. This was an areaa basically closed to women because of the greater difficulty they had in travel. Much of her career is associated with Life Magazine which before television helped bring visual images into the home. She would be the first woman documentary photographer to be accredited by and work with the American military. Margaret was the daughter of an engineer-designer in the printing industry. She attended Columbia University (1922–23), the University of Michigan (1923–25), Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University), and Cornell University (1927). She took up photography as a hobby and then after Cornell pursued it as a prossesional path as a free lancer. The publisher Henry Luce was impresed by her work hired her for his new Fortune magazine (1929). That was not the best year to begin a magazine in business, but the magazine survived. Luce sent her to photograph the Krupp Iron Works in Germany (1930). On her own she entered the Soviet Uniomn to photograph the First Five-Year Plan. This was a coup, but it has ti be noted that her handlers made sure she did not photograph the britl suppression of the peasantry and the genocidal NKVD operations in the Ukraine. She was hired by Luce for Life Magazine. Her firsrt series was on Montana’s Fort Peck Dam featured on the cover of Life's first issue. Bourke-White's assignments uring the 1939s included NAZI Germany and the Communist Soviet Union, but she caoptured none of the barbarity of those regines in the dramatic way she captured the suffering of the American MidWest Dust Bowl.
Her dramatic style first focused on industrial and architectural subjects. Her assignmnts led her to increasingly focus on people and social issues as subject matter. She began to express a more compassionate humanitarian tone to her work. Here Southern novelist Erskine Caldwell was a factor. They married (1939). The marriage did mot last long, but they collaborated on three illustrated books.
She covered World War II for Life and worked with the U.S. armed forces. Actually she began the War before the United States. She was the only foreign photographer in Moscow when Hitle launched the invasion of the Soviet Union. She was taken in by the U.S. Embassy but while in Mosow photographed the defense if the city and Luftwaffe air attacks. She began her work with the U.S. armed forces in North Africa. She was torpedoed bu a U-boat in the Mediteranean, but survived and photographed not only North African canpaig, but also the Italian campaign, coming under fire in Italy. She becme know as 'Maggie the Indestructible'. She moved on to Britain in anticipation of the D-Day landings. She did not get on with General Eisenhower but was friendly with his chauffeur/secretary, Irishwoman Kay Summersby. They had shared a lifeboat in the Mediterranean. Bourke-White's phographs of Summersby raised eyebrows back home. She entered the Reich with Gen. Patton's Third Army. And captured thecterrible scenes at Buchenwald. She later remrked, Using a camera was almost a relief. It interposed a slight barrier between myself and the horror in front of me." One wnders if she ever asked herself why she never caotured the evils of NAZI Germanhy and Sioviet Russia in her 1930s work. She captured what was left of a defeated Germany with cities reduced to rubbel and the country awash with refugees trying to get home. After World War II, her major assignmnt was in Induia. She photograph Mohandas Gandhi and his austere ashram. Her final assifnment was the Korean War, this time traveled with South Korean troops.
Philippe was born into a midlle-class Jewish family in Riga, Latvia. His father was Morduch (Max) Halsman, a dentist, and his wife Ita Grintuch who was a grammar school principal. The Baltics had been provinces in the Russian Empire, but indluenced by Germany and with an important German ethnic minority. Germany was especially influential in education. Halsman studied electrical engineering in Dresden. He went on a hiling tour in the Austrian Alps with his father (september 1928). His father fell and died of a head injury. The circumstances of the injury were disputed. Philippe was arrestedand tried for patricide. He was found guolty and sentenced to 4 years in prison. In aime of rising anti-Semitism, the case was seized upon by the anti-Semetic press in Germany and other countries. Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann supported Halsman. Austrian authorities released him (1931). He had to agree to leave Austria. He emigrated to France and settled to in Paris. There he pursued his photographic career, at first developing aeoutation with fashion magazines such as Vogue. He also developed a reputation as a talented portrait photographer. His style was a sharp focus and and closely cropped image. He was still in France when the Germans invaded and as a foreign Jew would have targeted by Vichy and the Germans. He made it to Marseille and managed ti ibtain a U.S. visa. He was assisted by Einstein. In America Halsman also gained success as a photographer. Cosmetics firm Elizabeth Arden gave him his first break. He photograophed model Constance Ford against the American flag in an advertising campaign for Arden's 'Victory Red' lipstick (1941). He then began getting commissions Life, the first was photographing hat designs (1942). He also began getting commissions from important people for portraits. One of the most famous was aensive Einstein after the War, dismayed about the role he had played in the atom bomb (1947). .
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 – 2004) went out on the streets of France and snapped people and every day life as they really were. He is described as a humanist photigrapher and a master of candid photograohy. He came from a prosperous family with textile uinterests. He was educated in France, but did university work in England (Cambridge) where he became bilingual. He did not specialize specifically on childrem, but captured some womderful images of them. Much of his work was in France, but we know he worked in most other European countries as well. He even became the first Western photographer to be allowed to photograph freely in the Soviet Union. He is best know for his small Leica 35 mm rangefinder camera. He had a long career leaving a fascinating body of work. He spent most of his time as a boy in Normandy. We had fun with a box brownie as a boy. But his primary interest at first was painting and music. Only later did he turned to photograohy as a vacation. He established a reputation in in the 30s and even had a show in America before the War. He met and befriended Robert Capa in his travels around Europe. We have not yet found many examples of his 1930s work. He did both street photograohy, pauinting his Leica black for greater anonymity, and photo journalsm. He covered some of the momentous events of the mid-20th century. He covered the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). He was mobilized at the outbeak of World War II, but was captured by the Germans. After two failed attempts he escaped and joined the resistance, using his photograophic skills and trusty Leica to document the German occupation. After the War he did workn on returning French POWs. The New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) which thought he was killed during the War did a show on him (1947). He joined his friend Robert Caopa and others to form Magnum Photography. He was assigned Asia. He covered Gandhi's funeral in India (1948), the last months of the Chinese Civil War including the last surviving Imperial eunuchs in Beijing 1948), and Indinesian independence from the Dutch (1949). He took some beautiful photographs in southern India (1950). We notice some of his stree photography in Europe during the 1950s-60s. The photograph here is a good example (figure 1). During the 1970s his output slowed considerably. He decided that he had basically said all he had to say.
George Rodger was a British photojournalist. He is best known for his work in Africa and for the World War II photographs of NAZI Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They were some of the first images from the NAZI camps to reach America and Britain. George's parents were Scottish, but he was born in England (Hale, Cheshire) near Manchester. He attended St. Bede's College in Manchester. He joined the British Merchant Navy after World war I and visted many different countries in his voyages around the world. He began writing travelogues and started taking photographs to illustrate him. He had no success in publishing his travel accounts. He tried to find work in America, but was unsucessful because of the Depression. He returned to Britain (1936) and was able to find work as aphotographer. He worked for the BBC's The Listener magazine in London. He also worked briefly for the Black Star Agency (1938). After Britain declared War on Germany, Rodger wanted to photograph the War. And it was not long before the War and the NAZIs arrived on his doorstep with the Blitz on London (1940). Time-Life hired him as a war correspondent. His work appeared in Life Magazine articles such as "Life spends a wartime weekend on the Thames". His photograohs also were published in the British Picture Post. After the Blitz, the situation settled down in Britain as the big Anglo-American build-up for D-Day began. Rodger worked in West Africa and Southeast Asia. He seems to have been the only British war reporter/photographer to travel and photograph the Burma Road--a area of considerable sensitivity at the time (1941). He covered the chatic British retreat from Burma (1942). After D-Day he photographed the liberation of France and the Low Countries (1944). Rodger was a Life stringer, so although some of his material was published by other magazines such as Picture Post, his work went for first refusal to Life. During the war, much of his work would have been published without an individual credit to him, hence the frustration that he and Robert Capa felt, that influenced the formation of Magnum.
After the Allies crossed the Rhine he was one of the first correspondants to photograph the NAZI concentration camps. His photographs from Bergen-Belsen shocked American and Britain (1945). Rodger later reported that afterv hecstarted taking photographs thsat he was appalled to realise that he was looking for graphically pleasing compositions of the piles of bodies. The experience was so traumatic that he could not bear to continue working as awar corespondant. His subsequent work was after leaving Time-Life wa in Africa and the Middle East with a focus on wildlife and people. He became a founder member of Magnum Photos (1947). His work appeared in Dimitris Charisiadis is one of the most important photographers of the 1940-60s era in Greece. He used to work as a chemist but quit his work for the profession of photographer. Throughout his professional career, Charissiadis maintained a personal interest in photographing Greek towns and landscapes and everyday life in agricultural and urban surroundings, believing that mankind was "the most interesting subject
in the world". The predominantly American influences that can be detected in his work, are the result of his association with foreign photographic agencies and his familiarity with international trends in photography. His photographs were highly acclaimed abroad and took part in many international expositions like "The family of man" in The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1955) and also "Greece by eleven photographers" (Chicago, 1957) and "The face of the European" (Munich, 1959). Like Nelly's, he also worked for Life Magazine. Charisiadis was laterawarded with the bronze medal of FIAP. In the photographs of Charisiadis we can see a lot of children almast always wearing their ordinary play or working clothes, rather than dressed up for a formal portrait.
We have very little infirmation on Ray Moulin, we believe he was born in the 1910s. His phographic career appears to have spanned the 1930s-50s. He was invoved with commercial photography, incliding the movies and television. We note a Popular Science (January 1951) about his experimental movie and television work. He did not focus his work on children, but he did one portrait we have found of a mock wedding. The girl wears a formal wedding gown. The boy wears a short pants black Eton suit and black knee socks. The knee sicks have a colored band which is not in keeping wih a formal outfit, more like a school sock. The portrait is not dated. The dealer suggests it was taken in the 1930s. We think it may have been taken in the 40s. We suspect it was involved in some sort of advertising campaign.
Robert Doisneau is one of France's most noted photographers. He is noted for the many playful and unsuposing images chronicling everyday French life. His prolific outbook over the course of several decades provides us a marvelous record of French life. His images don't seek to overcome the viewer. They are often modest in scope and playful. He is at his best with people. His images of French childhood are especially helpful for HBC. He was influenced by the work of Kertesz, Atget, and Cartier-Bresson who also provided wonderful images of childhood. He published ober 20 books providing realistic, but charming images of quiet, often personal moments in the lives of individuals. He wrote: "The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street."
Robert Capa is perhas the best known war photio journalist of all time. As a Jew, he saw little opportunity in post World War I Hungary. His left-wing politics attracted the attention of the secret police. He was arrested and beaten. He was released under the understanding that he would leave Hungary (1931). He wanted to be a writer, but his language skills besides Hungarian were not good. He turned to photography in Berlin. He began to get work, but when Hitler seized power, he prudently left for Paris (1933). Capa covered the major connflicts from the Spanish Civil War to the First Vietnam War. Capa was a pen name. He was born Endre Ernő Friedmann (1913). While in Paris he changed his name thinking, probably correctly, that a more American-sounding name would help sell his photographs. He created some of the most memorable images of these wars. He captured both combat images as well as the impact of the civilians caught up in the wars. Some of his most noted work was done during the the Spanish Civil War. His images are some of the few surviving photogeraphs of the Omaha Beach D-Day landings. And he left beautiful images capturing the joy of the liberation of Paris. It was Paris that the constantly moving Cazpa woyuld see as his home after leaving Hungary as a teenager. Capa co-founded Magnum Photos with, the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. The organization created a cooperative agency for worldwide freelance photographers.
Ken Foo Wong was born in Sarawak (1916). This was a British-controlled Muslim sheikdom in northwest Borneo. He developed a passion for photography as a youth, focused on genre work. And he has left a wonderful record of Borneo and Singapore during the colonial and and early independence era. As an ethnice Chinese, his work was curtailed during the Japanese World War II occupation of Singapore and Borneo. (The Japanese considered the Chinese as hostile and conducted ruthlessly killing operations in Chinese communities. One of the most ruthless was conducted in Singapore. A person of Chinese ethnicity taking photogrphs would have attracted potentially fatal attention.) Wong is perhaps best known for his beautiful photographs of the Iban and Dayak people of Sarawak. This and other work estanlishes him as a pioneer of art photography in Southeast Asia. He was drawn to Singapore with its Chinese population and rapidly developing economy. He resumed his exhaustive photographic work after the War. A 1946 photo of Japanese prisoners of war in 1946 shows them clearing a Singapore street. Other images capture realistic scenes of everyday life in markets, temples, offices, factories, along streets, and on the waterfront, captured with an impressive elegance. Most are unremarkable, byt images of everyday life, only few other photographers were capturing these imges, and certainly not with Wong's elegance.
Portraits/Fashion
Helen Penn photographed the peple of New York producing many beautiful. evocative images. She phototgraphed New York much as Robert Doisneau, a contemporary did Paris. Levitt's and Doisneau's photographs are similar in many ways, but Levitt did not persue the whimscal staged momments that Doisneau sometimes did. Her photographhs are little spontaneous glimses of New York City street life. Beginning in the late 1930s her black and white and color photographs chronicle life in New York. She concentrated on children and a large number of her lively photographs show them at play and at more contemplative moments. She collabotated with writer James Agee to make films that have won wide acclaim.
We have been able to find very little biographical information Georges Dimitria Boria. We believed he was born in America to an immigrant family, perhaps from Philadelphia about 1920. He produce a hughe quantity of menorable images capturing unforgetable images of Italy during World War II and then of post-War Japan. An Italian photographer points out that he was also an UNRRA photographer. He may have taken images used by UNRRA, but as far as we can tell he was drafted into the United States served as part of the U.S. Army Signal Corps which was involved in photographing the War. Interesting that the Army alloswed him to take photographs for UNRRA. Hpefully a proper biography will turn up. After the War, Boria served in Japan where his Signal Corps job was to photograph the American occupation. While in Japan he became interested in Japanese culture. He became thee supervisor of the color photographic laboratory for the American Far East Command (1947-52). He produced some of the earliest color images of Japan. He donated over 30,000 of his images to the MacArthur Archives.
A British reader tells us, "On a visit to Whitby I came across this story of John Tindale. Charles Tindale was John's father. He ran a chemists (pharmacy) shop. One part of it was taking street photographs of people on holiday. Ehitby bis a North Sea port. The address of where they were staying was recorded. Later that day after the photographs were delivered to them. This was the job John did. He cycled from address to address delvering the photographs. This is how John got involved with photogrphy. John took up photography and proceeded to recorded Whitby life in photographs over the decades, especilly beginning in the 1950s." John lived all his life in Whitby, except for a brief stent in the RAF during World War II. His father apprenticed him to be a pharmacist, but he always intended to be a photographer. Asan adult, he built darkrooms in the attic bove his pharmecy and recording studios and worked on weddings, commercial contracts, and news photography for the Whitby Gazette. Through all of this first as a hobby he began recording every day life in Whitby and environs. He drove a distinctive green Land Rover with a photographer’s eye displyed on the door. John roamed around the the Whitby areae lookin for evocative images and people for 40 years. He captured wonderful local characters and stories, as wll as senic vistdas. He also began recording the voices of his subjects describing their lives.
Anthony Gordon Boxall was an English amateur photographer best known for his sympathetic portrayal of Gypsy life in Britain. He engaged in other forms of genre photograph, but his work with gypseys is by far his best known work. He left school at 14 years of age which was common for wirking-class boys at the time. He found manual labor jobs and attended evening classes at Redhill Technical College. He earned City and Guilds qualifications in technical subjects. He then worked in a bookmaking company, running a shop in Horley (1960s). A a customer managed to convince him to accept a folding camera to settle a small gambling debt. Up until that time he had no particular intgerest in photography. Boxall taught himself how to use it and proved to be a fast learner. He bouhht a more advanced twin-lens reflex camera (TLR) and attempted to become a professional photographer. He failed in this effort. He became an accountant and worked for the Dorking-based Newspaper Press Fund (later renamed the Journalists' Charity). He became an associate of the Royal Photographic Society (1966) and received a fellowship (1969). His best kjnown work began after photographing a couple in a Gypsy caravan from his car without ask permission (1964). The couple was offended and began cursung him. He ignored it and left. He delt a little ashamed. He later looked them up and apologized and offered them prints. He gradualluy developed a relationship within the Gypsey community and was allowed to take many photographs. He used two TLRs, one loaded with black and white film and the other with color film. This series of photographs was taken over seceral years (1964-68). They were symoathetically done and depict rgeir close family life amid general poverty and absence of basic amenities. Some of the balck and whire photograophs were published in a book (1992). This wa delayed nearly three decades because as a resultg of his limited eduaction, he had unable to write a meaningful text. Brian Raywid ulyimately provided the text. Boxall earned some money by selling some of his photographs throuh agencies.
One of the most acclaimed Dutch photographers is Ed van Wijk. We do not know a great deal about his work yet, but we have noted some charming street scenes from the post-World War II period. For an example of his work see, Dutch 1950s page.
Shin Rakedahas works with the Suporting Self-sufficency (AjA) Project. He and other instructors work with refugee children from Afghanistan, Burma, Colombia, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan. He provides inexpensive cameras to children and lets them tell their stories.
Omer Beaudoin is noted for his photographs of Québec. His images focus on children of French Canadian farm families. He worked as a photographer at the Office du film du Québec" (Quebec Film Board). The Board reports that he created many pictures of "smiling children from the four corners of Quebec. .... Beyond pretty faces, mischievous looks, and farming landscapes, we find naivety, carefree, curiosity and wondering, so much a characteristic of childhood which crosses decades of years ...."
Canadian educator Michel Coron is also an accomplished photographer. During the 1970s he took photographs at a French Canadian school as part of a reserach program. The photos are a wonderful record of school activities and teaching methods at a school using progressive methods, a lot of projects and group work rather than teacher centered learming.
Masha Ivashintsova was born (1942- ). Her family had been had ben aristocratic. They had their possessions seized ny thr Bolsheviks, but survived. She became a theater critic and an artist. Her real love, however was photograohy. She obtained two high-quality camras, a Leica and Rolleiflex -- some thing not easy to do in the Soviet Union. On her own iniative as ha obby, she took some 30,000 photographs of her family and every day life in Leningrad (modern Saint Petersburg). She was active as soon as she became an adult (1960s-70s). As far as we know, she never duscussed her hobby with anyone.w Her photography only ended when her mental health deterioirated. She lost her job (1981). Being unemployed was illegal in the Soviet Union. She had to admit herself into a seies of mental institutions. Her family was aware that she was taking photographs, but for whatever reason, she never showed any of her work to anyone--even her family. Probably it would have been too expensive to print many of her images. But it is strange that she did not print some of her family images. She died of cancer (2000). After Ivashintsova's death, her daughter found boxes of negtives and undeveloped film. This was only made public in 2018. And very fe of her images ave yet been made public. Ivashintsova treasure trovre of black and white photogrphs is a view of the spirit of the times of imense hisorical importance.
An important modern Mexican photograspher is Rafael Doniz. We have very lttle biograsphicasl information on him. We know that he was born in Mexico City (1948). It began his photographic career as an assistant to Manuel Alvarez Bravo (1973-76). Doniz is a genre photographer interested in capturing images of Amer-Indian life and rural Mexico in general. He has left us beautiful images of a still traditional Mexico bedore it emerged as a regional leader, building a modern economy. His engaging images have been exhibited in museums in Mexico and the United Sttes as well as Europe. A lot of his images come from Guanajuat in central Mexico near Mexico City. A number are of children, but he did not focus on children.
Chinese photographer, Da Kang, was born and grew up in Beijing (1964). He started photographing seriously as a young man (early-80s). He was interested in creating a record of Chinese culture which he both revered and understood. He became a professional photographer and set out to create an extensive of archive of the Chinese population, especially ordinary people. He wanted to record their outlook, spirit and customs. While he had a special interest in people, he alsp photographed architecture, drama, martial arts, and other cultural and artistic creations. He has traveled extensively throughout the country, spending areat deal of time in Tibet, Yunnan and other areas inhabited by ethnic minorities. Here he captured both the people and their custoims on file. Although a modern photographer, he has steadfastly used a traditional film camera and not a digital camera. He produces his own prints, working in black and white. His work has won many prizes.
Marguerite Baker Johnson and her son Lee Baker Johnson were important photo-journalists with their work being widely published in important newspapers and magazines of the mid-20th century, especially those emphasising photographic images. Marguerite Baker Johnson was born in Brussels Belgium. She was a noted female photographer. While born in Belgium, her career is more associated with with America, capturing American life at mid-cebntury. She was the first woman to take photographs inside the arena at Cheyenne Frontier Days. Her work photos appeared in important American and British newspapers (the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, London Times, Daily Mirror, and others). She alsp provided phoptographs to magazines and other publications (Automotive Periodicals, US Camera Annual, British Photography Yearbook, Popular Photography Annual, and others). Her son Lee'ss work appeared in major magazines (Life Magazine and Fortune Magazine. He also did a lot of advertisement work (1950s and 1960s). Their work thus spans the post-World War II era (1940s through the 1970s). They produced many evocative black and white and color prints caturing a wide range of human activity, often mundane every day life scenes.
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site: Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
Dimitris Charissiadis (Greece, 1911-1993)
Ray Moulin (United States, 1910?-1960?)
Robert Doisneau (France, 1912-94)
Robert Capa (Hungary, 1913-54)
Wong, K.F. (1916-88)
Irving Penn (1917- )
Helen Levitt (U.S., 1918- )
Georges Dimitria Boria (United States, about 1920- )
John Tindale (England, 1921-2001)
Tony Boxall (England, 1929-2010)
Ed van Wijk (Netherlands, 19??-??)
Shin Takeda (??, 19??- )
Omer Beaudoin (Canada, 19??-??)
Michel Coron (Canada, 1936- )
Masha Ivashintsova (Russia, 1942-2000 )
Rafael Doniz (Mexico, 1948- )
Da Kang (China, 1964- )
The Baker Johnsons (Belgium/United States)
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Created: 6:23 PM 2/17/2011
Last updated: 8:54 PM 5/18/2023
