Edwin Bower Hesser

[mrcheese]

"A versatile artist whose plein air nudes of Showgirls in natural light became the academic standard for art photographers in the 1920s and whose portraits of movie actresses and stage stars were greatly influential images of glamour from 1925 to 1930. He was one of the few portraitist who regularly depicted sitters head on. His penchant for back-lighting so that hair seem lined with light, gave certain of his 1920s sitters a halo or aura. Expert at landscape photography, he often shot nudes in parks and glades. Possessed of an inquiring and entrepreneurial mind, he developed and patented a color process, "Hessecolor," that intrigued mass circulation publishers during the 1930s, but did not prevail in the marketplace."
(c) David S. Shields
http://broadway.cas.sc.edu/index.php...ographer&id=54


"The Dance Album"
"E. B. Hesser attributed his choice of photography as a medium of expression to a conversation with Alfred Cheney Johnston in 1919. Hesser during the early 1920s maintained studios in New York and Los Angeles, spending portions of the year in each location. Like Johnston and Nickolas Muray, Hesser was drawn to the nude as an expressive subject. In 1922, Hesser undertook a project that would be one of his life's aesthetic challenges, a series of nude dance portraits of model Desha Delteil, who during the post-WWI period was Muray's muse. The album was an experiment amalgamating the styles of the three photographers whom Hesser greatly admired: the posing alluded to Muray's experiments with torsioned full length bodies; yet the moody soft-focus recalled Arnold Genthe's dance portraits of the late 1910s in which atmosphere was so thick that the dancer's body visually flattened; finally, the use of balls, bows, swords, and scarves as props alluded to Johnston's exploration of the body with symbolic objects. While several copies of "The Dance Album" were hand printed by Hesser, they vary in number of images from 18 to 25, print tone, and sequence. That held by U.C.L.A.'s special collections department is the most comprehensive--yet it has extraneous images added to the sequence. A version in private hands in New York is the least afflicted by tone degradation, a problem with vintage Hesser images. Individual images found their way into the four Art magazines Hesser superintended during the 1920s. Hesser never was fully satisfied with "The Dance Album" and reworked various images with different exposures. It never came into print. Perhaps part of his anxiety arose from his consciousness of Muray's extraordinary sequence of nude images of Desha. (These can be viewed on the web at the site of the George Eastman House.) Hesser's "Album" was a means of grasping the kinetic beauty of the female nude, a concern that animated Maurice Goldberg, Arthur Kales, Muray, John De Mirjian, and G. Maillard Kesslere among the performing arts photographers on Broadway. In contrast, Johnston highlighted serenity, composure, and stillness. This is to my knowledge the first time "The Dance Album" has been available to the public."
(c) David S. Shields
http://historicalziegfeld.multiply.com

[mrcheese]

Carole Lombard, Corinne Griffith, Dorothy Knapp, Fairbanks Twins, Jean Harlow, Marguerite De La Motte, Marilyn Miller, Marjorie Daw, Melva Cornell, Viola Dana…

[mrcheese]

Alma Rubens, ,Bebe Daniels, Bessie Love, Blanche Mehaffey, Clara Bow, Colleene Moore, Dorothi Bock, Dorothy Dunbar, Dorothy Mackaill, Eve Southern, Gloria Swanson, Jean Harlow, Jobyna Ralston, Kathryn Stanley, Madeline Hurlock, Madge Bellamy, Marie Prevost, Mary Astor, Mary Pickford, Peggy Show, Phyllis Pearce...

[electile disfunction]

Hi mrcheese,

Here are a few more of Ms. Harlow by various scanners. They are of "different" qualities than what has been posted so far and I thought you might like them.

e.d.

[mrcheese]

[mrcheese]

Virginia Bruce

[mrcheese]

Dorothy Knapp (was Marguerite De La Motte) by EBHesser:

[mrcheese]

EBHesser, Betty Lee and The Triumph of Venus (1918)

“In 1917, Hesser wrote the story for a theatrical film entitled For the Freedom of the World and wrote, produced, and directed The Triumph of Venus that same year.” ©
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt6779q37h/

The Triumph of Venus (1918)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190094/





Betty Lee

“Grandniece of General Robert E. Lee, cousin of Patrick Henry... whose name was previously Mrs. Katherine C. Welch...”

“L.B. KENDALL MARRIES BETTY LEE, ACTRESS
New York Broker, Who Gave $4,500,000 and $100,000 a Year to Divorced Wife, Weds.”

“During World War I, Mrs. Kendall opened Sonogee as a hospital for recovering soldiers . One of these soldiers was Major Matthew Roberts, an American serving with the British Royal Flying Corps, and by 1918, the New York Times was reporting the Kendall's divorce, with Mr. Kendall (prominent stockbroker Lyman Kendall ) marrying singer/actress Betty Lee, and Mrs. Kendall marrying the Major. In the divorce settlement, which the Times called one of the largest ever at the time, Mrs. Kendall received the couple's Park Avenue apartment, an annuity of $100,000 (a lavish income in an era when a servant's wages were $5-$10 a week), $1,000,000 in cash, and Sonogee, valued by the Times at $2,000,000, including furnishings (unlikely).”

Mod Edit: Removed banned link.



Betty Lee by Hesser



Betty Lee by de Meyer



Betty Lee by Mishkin, Underwood...

[mrcheese]

Olive Borden







Olive Borden by EB Hesser?

[johnbear]

eileen percy.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0672907/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1