Portraits of Performers, 1870-1951, undated (bulk 1870-1935), bulk 1870-1935

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Summary

Title:
Portraits of performers
Dates:
1870-1951, undated (bulk 1870-1935), bulk 1870-1935
Creators:
Baker's Art Gallery
Abstract:
The collection comprises 385 studio portraits dating from the 1870s to the 1930s of variety show artists including vaudeville, burlesque, minstrel, and stage performers. The card-mounted portraits, primarily cabinet cards, depict sketch, character, and comedic actors; singers; dancers; acrobats; gymnasts; contortionists; clowns; acrobatic cyclists; jugglers; aerialists and trapeze and wire artists; ventriloquists; minstrel singers and players; comedians; male and female impersonators; strongmen and strongwomen; show riders, and other performers hailing from and photographed across Europe, the United States, Egypt, and Latin America.
Extent:
7.4 Linear Feet (7 boxes)
Language:
Collection material is in English and French with some German.
Preferred citation:

Portraits of performers, 1870-1962, undated, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2014.R.4.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2014r4

Background

Scope and content:

The collection comprises 385 studio portraits of variety show artists, including vaudeville, burlesque, minstrel, and other stage performers, dating from the 1870s to the 1930s. The collection, which is fairly equally divided between American and European performers, spans the heydays of what were known as music hall or variety show entertainments in England and the European continent, and as vaudeville and American burlesque in the United States.

Depicted are sketch, character, and comedy actors; singers; dancers; acrobats; gymnasts; contortionists; clowns; acrobatic cyclists; jugglers; aerialists and trapeze and wire artists; ventriloquists; minstrel singers and players performing in blackface; comedians; male and female impersonators; strongmen and strongwomen; and show riders. Some of the later performers represented in the collection, such as Bert Coote and Billy B. Van, made the transition from stage to film. Many of the specialized variety artists were photographed in costume and holding props such as juggling pins, fans, and riding crops to signify their specialties. Singers and actors tend to be photographed in street or evening clothes, although some of these performers are dressed as the characters they were most well-known for portraying. Although sitters represented in the collection such as monologist Frank Fogerty, the "Dublin Mistrel," who won the New York Morning Telegraph's contest for most popular vaudeville actor in 1912; the actress Blanche Walsh; Nellie Doner, boy impersonator and later ballet mistress of the New York Hippodrome; and comedian and White Rats vaudeville labor union leader, George B. Reno, may have been household names at the time their portraits were taken and collected, their popularity has been long-eclipsed by ever more recent entertainers, and today their names and acts are scarcely remembered.

Photographers hail from across the United States and Europe, with New York- and Paris-based photographers predominating respectively. Most photographers represented in the collection were local or regional portrait photographers and are not well-known today. European photographers of some note include George Henry Hana in London, Paul Boyer of Paris, and Wilhelm Scharmann in Berlin. Present is one portrait by the Spanish photographer Jean (Juan) Laurent. The collection also includes a few portraits from Latin American countries, notably Cuba and Argentina, and one by the Egyptian photographer G. Lékégian.

Many of the New York photographers represented in the collection were among those who had studios located on or near Broadway and who were patronized by theater personnel. These include Otto Sarony; Joseph Hall; Theodore C. Marceau (who also had studios in Philadelphia and Boston); Apeda Studio, and White Studio. Other areas of the United States with established theater districts also had photography studios which drew a theatrical clientele. W. M. Morrison is among several Chicago photographers present in the collection. San Francisco is represented by Elite Studio, Louis Thors, and other studios. Elmer Chickering had a studio in Boston. A number of photographers in the collection hail from Ohio including Baker's Art Gallery in Columbus, which was run by the photographer Lorenzo Martin.

Most of the portraits take the form of card mounted photographs, with the bulk being cabinet cards (approximately 6 1/2 x 4 inches), although the card sizes range from cartes-de-visite to boudoir cards, and from Paris and imperial cards to larger mounted portraits. Also present are both photographic and photomechanical postcards, as well as a few unmounted photographic prints. The type of card mount or mount dimensions are noted in the item-level scope and content notes. Unless otherwise noted, the postcard format is 5 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches.There are two sets of similar or often identical brief French annotations written on most of the versos of the photographs. Ballpoint ink annotations on most versos in French, often found on a brown paper label, seem to have been written by the unknown collector who assembled the present collection. These annotations echo the second set of annotations written in a shakier, more elderly hand. Additionally, parts of two distinct large collections are present in the overall assembly. Series I hails from Edmund Desbonnet's Collection athlétique, while Series II originally formed part of Mike Teller's collection of stage personalities and performers. Both of these collections were originally amassed in the vaudeville era and later dispersed.

Series I contains 76 items that originally formed part of Edmond Desbonnet's Collection athlétique and they bear his collection wet stamp. The portraits in this series were made by a wide variety of photographers, mostly European, although a few were taken by American photographers. None of the portraits present here are known to have been taken by Desbonnet himself. The sitters are European men and women who performed as gymnasts, acrobats, dancers, contortionists, equestrian acts, jugglers, trapeze artists, acrobatic cyclists, clowns, and singers.

Series II comprises a small group of 22 portraits that originally formed part of Mike Teller's collection of theatrical portraits. The items in this series were determined to have been part of Teller's collection based on the dedications they bear. The photographers in this series are all American portrait photographers, primarily located in New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati, Columbus, or Toledo, Ohio, although the work of quite a few regional photography studios is also represented. Most of the sitters are American, although a few were of British birth. Present are actors, singers, comedians, and other variety artists.

Series III comprises 287 portraits that cannot be definitively assigned to either the Desbonnet or Teller collections due to their lack of explicit dedications or collector's stamps, although some of the images included in the series could have originally been part of either collection. Overall, the items in this series would seem to have been collected piecemeal by the unknown collector. The series is further divided into three subseries: III.A Portraits of women; III.B Portraits of men; and III.C Group portraits. The series comprises relatively equal numbers of portraits of American and European performers taken by a proportionate number of American and European photographers. The American performers are primarily dramatic artists, comedians, and singers while the European performers are more varied in their specialties which are of a broader gymnastic or athletic nature. Also included in the series is one circus-related pamphlet entitled The Call of the Calliope.

Many of the cards in Series I and III bear a talent agent's or agency's label or wet stamp on their verso. These include Agence Rubini; C. M. Ercole; E. de Rasim; Emmanuel Roche; E. Schlax; Richard Warner; J. D. Marcadet; E. Perrìer; Staveau & Wilson; G. Hoffman American Star Agency; and the Globe Amusement Association. The presence of these agency markings is noted in the scope and content notes for the individual items. The physical descriptions and imprints of the most prevalent agencies are as follows:

Agence Rubini labels are buff with lines left for Nom, Genre, Libre and Conditions. The label imprint reads: Agence Rubini / Ex-Regisseur-Général / des / Deux Cirques / 117, boulevard Richard Lenoir, 117 / Paris / Adresse télégraphique / Agence Rubini, Paris. This adddress is crossed out and new address stamped in purple ink: 12, Boulevard du Temple, 12. Some cards bear only an Agence Rubini wet stamp with the later address on their versos: Agence Rubini / 12, boule du Temple / Paris.

The C. M. Ercole labels are green with lines left for Genre, No[m], and Adresse to be filled in. The label imprint is as follows: C. M. Ercole / Théâtres / Concerts & cirques / 8 rue de Port-Mahon 8 / Paris / Adresse télégraphique / Ercole-Paris. Also sometimes present is a purple wet stamp reading either: Théâtres - concerts / cirques /C. M. Ercole / 8, rue de Port-Mahon, 8 / Paris, or: Ercole / 22 chaussée d'Antin / Paris /théâtres / concerts / cirques.

The purple Schlax wet stamp reads: Agence générale / artistique / E. Schlax / 37, ruede Trévise, / Paris.

The purple wet stamps for Roche read either: Emmanuel Roche/ Agent for variety artistes / 72, rue du Château-d'Eau, 72 / Paris; or: Cirques-variétés / A. E. Roche / 72, rue du Château-d'eau, 72 / Paris.

The Warner wet stamp reads: Richard Warner Cie, Ltd. / Agence internationale / pour théâtres / music halls et concerts / 45 rue Richer, 45 / Paris.

The Marcadet wet stamp reads: Théâtres, concerts, cirques, music-halls / J. D. Marcadet / Imprésario / [various dates] /Correspondances en toutes langues / Agences succursales: Bruxelles, Londres, Berlin / 4,rue de l'Échiquier, 4 - Paris. Variant wet stamps are noted under the portrait on which they appear.

The Perríer stamp reads: E. Perríer / Agence théâtrale internationale / 20 bould. St. Denis / Paris.

Staveau & Wilson wet stamp reads: Staveau & Wilson / Agence artistique / 19, rue d'Enghien, 19 / Paris.[telephone] 1524.

The individual items in the collection were numbered prior to final arrangement. Thus, while items are sequentially filed within each box, the arrangement in the finding aid is not sequential.

Biographical / historical:

The present collection was assembled by an unknown collector or collectors. It was formerly part of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center collection, where it had been donated in 1998 by Mark Story. It is not known how Story obtained the collection or whether he was in any way responsible for its assembly. There are two sets of similar or often identical brief French annotations written on most of the versos of the photographs. One set is written in a shakier hand, often in pencil and could belong to the original assembler. The second set is written, usually in ballpoint pen, on brown paper labels adhered to the versos. These appear to be the more recent annotations. Parts of two distinct large collections are present in the overall assembly. One group hails from Edmund Desbonnet's Collection athlétique, and the other from Mike Teller's collection of stage personalities and performers, both of which were originally amassed in the vaudeville era. The remainder of the items would seem to have been collected piecemeal by the unknown collector(s).

A French academic, photographer, gymnast, and fitness theorist and instructor, Edmond Desbonnet (1868-1952), was an early proponent of the physical culture movement that was a response both to the perceived decadence of the Belle Époque and to the physical weakness that France's recent loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany seemed to signal. Desbonnet was the creator of the eponymously-named méthode Desbonnet of gymnastics and founder of a chain of physical culture or fitness centers, opening his first rooms in Lille in 1895 and then in locations such as Roubaix, Paris, Geneva, and Brussels. Using the slogan "Santé, Beauté, Force," his method was based on analytical exercises, weightlifting, and stretching.

Desbonnet authored numerous books on physical culture including his most well-known volume Les rois de la force, histoire de tous les hommes forts depuis les temps anciens jusqu'à nos jours (1911), and published five journals on the subject, the most popular of which were La culture physique and La santé par les sports. He was the first person to use photography to illustrate fitness methods, and his stereographs, along with stereo viewers, were available for purchase through his magazines.

A sickly child, Desbonnet was required to perform gymnastic exercises as part of his treatment. When still a boy he found his first photograph of a strongman, which spurred his interest in collecting images of athletes. These athletes were often performers - strongmen and strongwomen, acrobats, gymnasts, and jugglers - in vaudeville shows, cabarets, and theaters. Desbonnet amassed a large collection of perhaps thousands of photographs. Little is known of the history of his Collection athlétique and its ultimate dispersal.

Michael "Mike" Teller was the proprietor of the Teller Theatrical Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a business that he founded in 1871 and ran until his death in 1914. The hotel or boarding house, ultimately located at 701 Vine Street, was the temporary or seasonal residence for innumerable theatrical "artistes" passing through Philadelphia during the heyday of American variety theater. Teller, Civil War veteran-turned-hotelier, was apparently much beloved by his guests. Following in the tradition of collecting celebrity portraits that had begun with the carte-de-visite craze in the 1860s, he amassed somewhere between 1,800 and 2,000 photographs, most of which hung in his hotel in large frames containing between 100 and 300 portraits each. He received most of the portraits directly from his guests, who usually wrote dedications to him across the photographic image or on the mount. Philadelphia's Evening Public Ledger noted in a brief obituary published the day after Teller's death that, "His autographed pictures of old-time stage favorites is considered a rare collection, of which he often boasted" (26 December 1914).

Teller's Theatrical Hotel closed at the end of May, 1915. Teller had bequeathed his collection to the comedian Billy B. Van, who was one of Teller's first guests and a life-long friend. Van moved the collection to Georges Mills, New Hampshire, and installed it in the Van Harbor Casino Movie Company, his own moving picture studio. The collection was apparently dispersed at some later date and its subsequent whereabouts have remained unknown to the cataloger.

Sources consulted for Edmond Desbonnet:

Early Visual Media, Photography section, "Early French Culture Physique Photography: Professor Edmond Desbonnet," ©2003, http://users.telenet.be/thomasweynants/culturephysique.html.

Legendary Strength, Stongman Mastery section; "Edmond Desbonnet," October 18, 2013, http://legendarystrength.com/edmond-desbonnet.

Sources consulted for Mike Teller:

New York Clipper. "Mike Teller Dead," January 2, 1915, p.10.

Philadelphia Record. "Famous Hostelry is Discontinued," June 6, 1915, p. 3.

Public Ledger (Philadelphia). "Michael Teller," December 26, 1914, p.15.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Advisory Council for the Arts of Cedars Sinai Medical Center. Acquired in 2013.
Processing information:

Processed by B. Karenina Karyadi, who also began the finding aid, under the supervision of Beth Ann Guynn in 2014. Finding aid written by Beth Ann Guynn and Linda Kleiger in 2016.

Arrangement:

Arranged in three series: Series I. Desbonnet collection, 1889-1906, undated; Series II. Mike Teller collection, 1886-1909, undated; Series III. Other entertainers and personalities, 1870-1951, undated.

Physical location:
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Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Beth Ann Guynn, B. Karenina Karyadi, and Linda Kleiger
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-03-19 09:07:54 -0700 .

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Restrictions:

Open for use by qualified researchers.

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Preferred citation:

Portraits of performers, 1870-1962, undated, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2014.R.4.

http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2014r4

Location of this collection:
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688, US
Contact:
(310) 440-7390
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