Fabulous Photographer, Baron de Meyer

Baron de Meyer is often credited with being the first fashion photographer, personally I think his work is sublime, he has an interesting Wikipedia entry too...

Le Compte Etienne de Beaumont 1919

Irene Castle more about her here

Woman overlooking Florence 1900

 Coco Chanel 1923

Gloria Swanson 1921

Rather lovely book available here and here

Fabulous Photographer, George Hurrell

Bette Davis

When you think of the Golden age of Hollywood you cannot help but think about the wonderful photographic images of the stars.  Image was everything in old Hollywood, important for the studios and important for the stars, nothing less than perfect would do, there was not much room for gritty realism, with the great worldwide depression of the thirties people had enough of that in their lives, they looked to Hollywood for escapism and to fuel new aspirations.  The stars could not look like mere mortals, they had to look like Gods and Godesses.  George Hurrell was one of the best photographers in the business, a creative force with lighting, skilled at sculpting faces with shadow and a master at retouching. He did not go in for the girl and boy next door look or the cheesecake, pin up photographs that became so popular in the late forties and fifties, his genre was pure glamour, he was in the business of creating icons...

 

Bette Davis

The man dubbed the "Grand Seigneur of the Hollywood Portrait," was born in Covington, KY, across the river from Cincinnati, in 1904. By the time he was eight, young George Hurrell had developed an interest in painting and drawing. He fell into photography almost by accident, originally learning how to use a camera so that he could photograph his paintings.

 After studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, Hurrell was commissioned to photograph paintings and painters in Laguna Beach, CA art colony in 1925. Hurrell moved west hoping to continue his art studies. Before long, however, taking pictures took the place of painting pictures as he found more work shooting portraits.

Norma Shearer

One of Hurrell's first subjects was the famed aviatrix Poncho Barnes. Through her, he met silent-screen star Ramon Novarro, who commissioned a series of portraits from Hurrell. Thrilled with the results, Novarro showed off his new stills to co-workers at MGM, where they caught the eye of leading lady Norma Shearer. Shearer was desperate to convince her husband, MGM production chief Irving G. Thalberg, that she could generate enough sex appeal to play the lead in The Divorcée. She hired Hurrell to take some sizzling photos that landed her the role. Thalberg and Shearer were so impressed with Hurrell's work that he was hired as head of the MGM portrait gallery in 1930.

Norma Shearer

For the next two years, Hurrell photographed every star at MGM, from Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, and Greta Garbo to Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler. His work set a new standard for Hollywood portraits. It even inspired a new name for the genre — glamour photography.

Norma Shearer

After a disagreement with MGM publicity head Howard Strickling, Hurrell left to set up his own studio on Sunset Boulevard. The stars flocked to Hurrell for portraits.

Greta Garbo

 But movies remained Hurrell's first love. After six years, he moved to Warner Bros., helping build the careers of such stars as Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, and James Cagney. Hurrell moved to Columbia, where he shaped Rita Hayworth's image.

 Rita Hayworth

Marlene Dietrich

After service with the First Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. Army Air Force, where he shot training films and photographed generals at the Pentagon, Hurrell returned to Hollywood, but soon found that the old style of glamour photography had fallen out of fashion. He relocated to New York, where he continued shooting advertising and fashion lay-outs through the 50s.

Hedy Lamarr

 Tallulah Bankhead

 Veronica Lake

 Carol Lombard

 Myrna Loy

In 1952, Hurrell returned to Hollywood and started a television production company with his wife, Phyllis. It was located on the Disney lot. After two years, he returned to New York. He settled in Southern California permanently in 1956, eventually moved back into the film industry as a unit still man.

Jean Harlow

Beginning in 1965 with an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art, his work has been showcased at museums throughout the world. He published The Hurrell Style, with text by Whitney Stine, in 1976, followed by other commemorative books and special-edition prints of his work. It was during these years that he shot stars like Liza Minelli, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford. Even after his retirement in 1976, he continued to shoot portraits, adding to his portfolio such representatives of the new Hollywood as Sharon Stone, Brooke Shields, and John Travolta. Among his last assignments were photographing Warren Beatty and Annette Benning for Bugsy, Natalie Cole for the best-selling "Unforgettable" album, and a fashion layout with Jennifer Flavin, his last photographic subject.

Jean Harlow

During the last years of his life, Hurrell worked with producer J. Grier Clarke and producer-director Carl Colby on Legends in Light, the first major retrospective of his work. George Hurrell died of cancer in 1992.

Lupe Velez

 Lupe Velez

Joan Crawford

 Joan Crawford

Joan Crawford

These two photographs of Joan Crawford, demonstrate Hurrells retouching talents, today airbrushing and digitally enhancing photographs is a matter of pressing buttons but in the early days, it was a painstaking process, done by hand and often took hours.

Gene Tierney

Katherine Hepburn

 Susan Hayward

Barbara Stanwyk

Text Source from: http://www.hurrelleditions.com/biography.html

Fabulous Photographer Toni Frissell

Antoinette Frissell was born in 1907 in New York City, New York, but took photos under the name Toni Frissell, even after her marriage to Manhattan socialite McNeil Bacon. She worked with many famous photographers of the day, as an apprentice to Cecil Beaton, and with advice from Edward Steichen. Her initial job, as a fashion photographer for Vogue in 1931, was due to Condé Montrose Nast personally. She later took photographs for Harper's Bazaar. Her fashion photos, even of evening gowns and such, were often notable for their outdoor settings, emphasizing active women.

Weeki Wachee Spring Florida, Published in Harpers Bazaar 1947, considered her finest work, has been used for album covers and is much emulated.

 Frissell was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with fashion photography and wanted to be taken seriously as a photographic reporter, In 1941, Frissell volunteered her photographic services to the American Red Cross. Later she worked for the Eighth Army Air Force and became the official photographer of the Women's Army Corps. On their behalf, she took thousands of images of nurses, front-line soldiers, WACs, African-American airmen, and orphaned children. She travelled to the European front twice, much to her families consternation. Her moving photographs of military women and African American fighter pilots in the elite 332d Fighter Group (the "Tuskegee Airmen") were used to encourage public support for women and African Americans in the military.

Dovima, Montego Bay, Harpers Bazaar 1946

In the 1950s, she took informal portraits of the famous and powerful in the United States and Europe, including Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, and John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, and worked for Sports Illustrated and Life magazines. Continuing her interest in active women and sports, she was the first woman on the staff of Sports Illustrated in 1953, and continued to be one of very few female sport photographers for several decades.

In later work she concentrated on photographing women from all walks of life, often as a commentary on the human condition.

Toni Frissell died of Alzheimer's disease on April 17, 1988, in a Long Island nursing home.

Actress Elizabeth Blair 1934

Members of the elite all black Tuskegee airmen 332nd fighter group attending a brief meeting in Ramitelli, Italy 1945

An abandoned boy, holding a soft toy amongst the devastation of the London Blitz 1945

Lady Churchill kissing her Graddaughter

With llamas in Peru

Toni Frissell

“Here are faces that I have found memorable. If they are not all as happy as kings, it is because in this imperfect world and these hazardous times, the camera's eye, like the eye of a child, often sees true.”