Remember Me

Russian Beauty 1918

2012-03-07T17:24:00.001Z

Le Vice d' Asie

2012-03-06T21:44:00.001Z

Henri Emile Vollet (1861-1945), Le Vice d'Asie - fumerie d' opium 1909

Countess di Castiglione (1837-1899)

2012-03-03T15:48:00.001Z

More of La Castiglione here and here.

Allegretto

2012-02-27T22:55:00.001Z

Allegretto, by Arnold Genthe, 1910

Helena Modjeska

2012-02-23T21:31:00.002Z

Helena Modjeska (October 12, 1840 – April 8, 1909, whose actual Polish surname was Modrzejewska , was a renowned actress who specialized in Shakespearean and tragic roles. She was born in Kraków, Poland, on October 12, 1840. Her name was recorded at birth as Jadwiga Benda, but she was later baptized Helena Opid, being given her godfather’s surname.

The question of her origins is a complicated one. Modjeska’s mother was Józefa (Misel) Benda, the widow of a prosperous Kraków merchant, Szymon Benda. In her autobiography, Modjeska claimed that her father was a musician named Michael Opid. While it is true that the Benda family did employ a music teacher named Michal Opid, who later stood as Helena’s godfather, Opid was not the father of Józefa Benda’s two youngest children. There is evidence to suggest that Helena and her older brother Adolf were the results of an affair between Józefa and Prince Władysław Sanguszko, a wealthy and influential Polish nobleman.

Also glossed over in Modjeska's autobiography were the details concerning her first marriage, to her former guardian, Gustave Sinnmayer (known in Poland as Gustaw Zimajer). Gustave was an actor and the director of a second-rate provincial theater troupe. The date of Modjeska’s marriage to Gustave is uncertain. She discovered many years later that they had never been legally married, as he was still married to his first wife when they wed. Together the couple had two children, a son Rudolf (later renamed Ralph Modjeski), and a daughter Marylka, who died in infancy.

Gustaw Zimajer used the stage name "Gustaw Modrzejewski." It was the feminine version of this name that Modjeska adopted when she made her stage debut in 1861 as Helena Modrzejewska. Later, when acting abroad, she used an "anglicized" version of her name ("Modjeska"), which was easier for English-speaking audiences to pronounce. In 1865, Zimajer tried to get her a contract with Viennese theaters, but the plan came to naught due to her poor knowledge of the German language. Later that year Helena left Zimajer, taking their son Rudolf, and returning to Kraków. Once there she accepted a four-year theatrical engagement. In 1868 she began appearing in Warsaw; during her eight years there, she consolidated her status as a theater star. Her brothers Józef and Feliks Benda were also well regarded actors in Poland.

On September 12, 1868, Modjeska married a Polish nobleman, Karol Bożenta Chłapowski. Best known in America as "Count Bozenta," he was not a count. His family belonged to the untitled landed gentry (szlachta). In the United States he adopted the stage name "Count Bozenta" as a ploy to gain publicity. "Bozenta" was easier for an English-speaking audience to pronounce than "Chłapowski". Modjeska wrote that their home "became the center of the artistic and literary world [of Kraków]." Poets, authors, politicians, artists, composers and other actors frequented Modjeska’s salon. In July 1876, after spending more than a decade as the reigning diva of the Polish national theater, for reasons both personal and political, Modjeska and her husband chose to emigrate to the United States.

My husband's only desire was to take me away from my surroundings and give me perfect rest from my work...Our friends used to talk about the new country, the new life, new scenery, and the possibility of settling down somewhere in the land of freedom, away from the daily vexations to which each Pole was exposed in Russian or Prussian Poland. Henryk Sienkiewicz was the first to advocate emigration. Little by little others followed him, and soon five of them expressed the desire to seek adventures in the jungles of the virgin land. My husband, seeing the eagerness of the young men, conceived the idea of forming a colony in California on the model of the Brook Farm. The project was received with acclamation.

Once in America, Modjeska and her husband purchased a ranch near Anaheim, California. Julian Sypniewski, Łucjan Paprowski and Henryk Sienkiewicz, future author of famous novels including Quo Vadis, were among the friends who had accompanied them to California. Modjeska intended to abandon her career and envisioned herself living "a life of toil under the blue skies of California, among the hills, riding on horseback with a gun over my shoulder." The reality proved less cinematic. None of the colonists knew the first thing about ranching or farming, and they could barely speak English. The utopian experiment failed, the colonists went their separate ways, and Modjeska returned to the stage, reprising the Shakespearean roles that she had performed in Poland.

as Ophelia

Despite her accent and imperfect command of English, she achieved great success. During her career she played nine Shakespearean heroines, Marguerite Gautier in Camille, and Schiller's Maria Stuart. In 1883, the year she obtained American citizenship, she produced Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House in Louisville, Kentucky, the first Ibsen play staged in the United States. In the 1880s and 1890s she had a reputation as the leading female interpreter of Shakespeare on the American stage.

as Sapho

In 1893 Modjeska was invited to speak to a women's conference at the Chicago World's Fair, and described the situation of Polish women in the Russian and Prussian-ruled parts of dismembered Poland. This led to a Tsarist ban on her traveling in Russian territory. Modjeska suffered a stroke and was partially paralyzed in 1897, but recovered and soon returned to the stage, continuing to perform for several additional years. On May 2, 1905, she gave a jubilee performance in New York City. Then she toured for two years and ended her acting career, afterward only appearing sporadically in support of charitable causes.

Modjeska died at Newport Beach, California on April 8, 1909, aged 68, from Bright's disease. Modrzejewska's son, Rudolf Modrzejewski (Ralph Modjeski), was a civil engineer who gained fame as a designer of bridges. Modjeska was also the aunt of artist Władysław T. Benda and she was godmother to American actress Ethel Barrymore.

source: Wikipedia

Princess Nicotine - 1909

2012-02-15T23:25:00.000Z

Dir. James Stuart Blackton

John Gray

2012-02-12T20:14:00.001Z

John Gray (2 March 1866 – 14 June 1934) was an English poet whose works include Silverpoints, The Long Road and Park: A Fantastic Story. Gray is best known today as an aesthetic poet of the 1890s and as a friend of Ernest Dowson, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde. He was also a talented translator, bringing works by the French Symbolists Mallarmé, Verlaine, Laforgue and Rimbaud into English, often for the first time. He is purported to be the inspiration behind the title character in Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, but distanced himself from this rumor.

It should also be noted that Wilde's story was serialised in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine a year before their relationship began. His relationship with Wilde was initially intense, but had cooled for over two years by the time of Wilde's imprisonment. The relationship appears to have been at its height in the period 1891-1893.

Like many of the artists of that period, Gray was a convert to Roman Catholicism. He was baptised on 14th February 1890, but soon lapsed. Wilde's trial appears to have prompted some intense soul-searching in Gray and he re-embraced Catholicism in 1895. In 1896 he gave this reversion poetic form in his volume Spiritual Poems: chiefly done out of several languages. He left his position at the Foreign Office and on 28 November 1898, at the age of 32, he entered the Scots College, Rome, to study for the priesthood. He was ordained by Cardinal Pietro Respighi at St John Lateran on 21 December 1901. He served as a priest in Edinburgh, first at Saint Patrick's and then as rector at Saint Peter's.

His most important supporter, and life partner, was Marc-André Raffalovich, a wealthy poet and early defender of homosexuality. Raffalovich himself became a Catholic in 1896 and joined the tertiary order of Dominicans. When Gray went to Edinburgh he settled nearby. He helped finance St Peter's Church in Morningside where Gray would serve as priest for the rest of his life. The two maintained a chaste relationship until Raffalovich's sudden death in 1934. A devastated Gray died exactly four months later at St. Raphael's nursing home in Edinburgh after a short illness.

Lily Elsie and Gabrielle Ray

2012-02-03T23:36:00.002Z

Lily Elsie and Gabrielle Ray

Ziegfeld girl - 1910

2012-01-28T21:55:00.001Z

Ziegfeld Girls were the chorus girls from Florenz Ziegfeld's theatrical spectaculars known as the Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931), which were based on the Folies Bergère of Paris.

Victorian Cabinet Card

2012-01-26T21:41:00.001Z

Kisses

2012-01-18T23:31:00.001Z

Ilustração Portugueza

2012-01-17T21:49:00.002Z

Ilustração Portugueza No 123 June 20th 1908.

"The past, present and future, revealed by the most celebrated chiromancist and physionomist in Europe.

Madame Brouillard

Tells the past and present and predicts the future, with veracity and swiftness. Her predictions are incomparable. She has studied sciences, chiromancy, chronology and physiognomy, and applies the theories of Gall, Lavater, Desbarroles, Lambroze, and d'Arpenligney. Madame Brouillard has travelled across Europe and America, where she has been admired by her numerous clients of the highest order, for whom she has made predictions concerning the fall of the empire and all the events that followed. She speaks Portuguese, French, English, German, Italian and Spanish.

Daily consultations, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. in her office."

Mucha's Models

2012-01-14T21:23:00.001Z

Alfons Maria Mucha (24 July 1860 – 14 July 1939) was a Czech Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist, known best for his distinct style. He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements, postcards, and designs.

c1902-04

1899

Clarence Hudson White

2012-01-10T00:09:00.001Z

Clarence Hudson White (April 8, 1871 – July 7, 1925) was an American photographer, teacher and a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement. He became friends with Alfred Stieglitz and helped advance the cause of photography as a true art form.

Clarence Hudson White - The Arbor - 1906

2012-01-09T22:47:00.001Z

Jeanne Hébuterne

2012-01-05T21:10:00.001Z

Jeanne Hébuterne (6 April 1898 – 25 January 1920) was a French artist, best known as the frequent subject and common-law wife of the artist Amedeo Modigliani.

She was born in Paris to a Roman Catholic family. Her father, Achille Casimir Hébuterne, worked at Le Bon Marché department store. A beautiful girl, she was introduced to the artistic community in Montparnasse by her brother André Hébuterne who wanted to become a painter. She met several of the then-starving artists and modeled for Tsuguharu Foujita. However, wanting to pursue a career in the arts, and with a talent for drawing, she chose to study at the Académie Colarossi.

Hébuterne by Modigliani, 1919

It was there in the spring of 1917 that Jeanne Hébuterne was introduced to Amedeo Modigliani by the sculptor Chana Orloff (1888–1968) who came with many other artists to take advantage of the Academy's live models. Jeanne soon began an affair with the charismatic artist, and the two fell deeply in love. She soon moved in with him, despite strong objection from her deeply Catholic parents.

Jeanne Hébuterne, Self Portrait, 1916

Described by the writer Charles-Albert Cingria (1883–1954) as gentle, shy, quiet, and delicate, Jeanne Hébuterne became a principal subject for Modigliani's art. In the fall of 1918, the couple moved to the warmer climate of Nice on the French Riviera where Modigliani's agent hoped he might raise his profile by selling some of his works to the wealthy art connoisseurs who wintered there.

While they were in Nice, their daughter was born on 29 November. The following spring, they returned to Paris and Jeanne became pregnant again. By this time, Modigliani was suffering from tuberculous meningitis and his health, made worse by complications brought on by substance abuse, was deteriorating badly.

Jeanne Hébuterne, Death, 1919

On 24 January 1920 Amedeo Modigliani died. Jeanne Hébuterne's family brought her to their home but Jeanne, totally distraught, threw herself out of the fifth-floor apartment window the day after Modigliani's death, killing herself and her unborn child. Her family, who blamed her demise on Modigliani, interred her in the Cimetière de Bagneux. Nearly ten years later, the Hébuterne family finally relented and allowed her remains to be transferred to Père Lachaise Cemetery to rest beside Modigliani. Her epitaph reads: "Devoted companion to the extreme sacrifice."

Their orphaned daughter, Jeanne Modigliani (1918–1984), was adopted by her father's sister in Florence, Italy. She grew up knowing virtually nothing of her parents and as an adult began researching their lives. In 1958, she wrote a biography of her father that was published in the English language in the United States as Modigliani: Man and Myth.

source: Wikipedia

Movie Theatre Etiquette

2011-12-30T18:49:00.001Z

Macy's Holiday Window Display 1870s

2011-12-24T11:40:00.000Z

London 1908

2011-12-23T13:22:00.000Z

"the Merry Frolics of Satan" - 1906

2011-12-11T21:40:00.000Z

by Georges Melies, in 1906

Odalisque - 1900

2011-12-07T11:35:00.000Z

by Charles Berg (1856-1926)

Charles Augustin Lhermitte

2011-11-30T23:25:00.000Z

Charles Augustin Lhermitte, French, (1881-1945) was the son of the realist painter Lèon Lhermitte (1844-1925) and worked in photography for about twenty years, stopping in the 1920s.

c. 1912

Rosa Rosarum

2011-11-21T21:15:00.000Z

Mathilde Weil, Rosa Rosarum, 1901

Les deux Blanches

2011-11-17T13:51:00.000Z

By Ernest Biéler (1863-1948).

Study for the decoration of Villa Kaeser in Genff 1898

Confidence à l'abri du bois, 1898, tempera

Nude Study - 1905

2011-11-16T21:39:00.000Z

By Arnold Genthe (1869-1942).

Nude Study - 1915

2011-11-12T23:14:00.000Z

By Henry B. Goodwin (1878-1931).

Les Jarretières Rouges

2011-11-03T22:54:00.000Z

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), Les Jarretières Rouges, 1905

The Veiled Lady

2011-10-31T19:25:00.000Z

Imogen Cunningham, c. 1910-1912

Remember Me

2011-10-30T13:08:00.000Z

Pictures of anonymous lives, long past...

Folies Bergère 1900s

Three girls in street, c. 1910, by Lewis Hine

Tenement in NY, c. 1910

Sufragettes protest in University of Manchester, 1909

Mouffetard Street in Paris, by Eugene Atget, c.1900

Puppet Theatre, c. 1900

Deepwater Races, 1910

Making dresses for Campbell Kid Dolls, NY, 1912

London Subway, 1890s

Spinner in a New England cotton mill, 1910

Slavic immigrant, Ellis Island, 1905, by Lewis Hine

Les Createurs de La Mode, 1910, Salon de Vente Doucet

Les Createurs de La mode, 1910

Atlantic City, New Jersey, c. 1905

Ballroom, Hyde Park Hotel, 1912

Broadway flower factory

Piazza San Marco, c.1900

Florida, c.1905

Group at Hokio Beach, Horowhenua district, 1909

(Many images are uncredited, since I do not have any information on them. If anyone has, I would be very grateful for the sharing).

The Gibson Girl

2011-10-29T22:38:00.001+01:00

The Gibson Girl Illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944).

Jour de Pluie - 1909

2011-10-27T20:46:00.000+01:00

Oilprint by Pierre Dubreuil (1872 - 1944).

Paris 1911

2011-10-24T21:50:00.000+01:00

Snapshots by Alfred Stieglitz.

The Black Hat

2011-10-22T14:08:00.001+01:00

by Philip Wilson Steer, 1900

Edward Steichen

2011-10-19T20:05:00.000+01:00

Agnes Ernst by Edward Steichen, 1908

Solitude, Fred Holland Day, 1901, by Edward Steichen

Edward Steichen, Self-Portrait, 1915

The Hasher's Delirium - 1910

2011-10-13T20:23:00.000+01:00

Cameraman's Revenge - 1912

2011-10-09T22:37:00.000+01:00

Infidelity among insects!

Cameraman's Revenge, by Ladislaw Starewicz, 1912

The Maid's Dream 1860

2011-10-07T21:36:00.000+01:00

Jeanne Renoir

2011-10-06T20:41:00.001+01:00

Jeanne Renoir (french actress) by Emile Reutlinger

Fashion 1900s

2011-10-03T00:03:00.001+01:00

1900

1901

1910

1914

1916

Fashion Plates - 19th Century

2011-10-02T21:18:00.000+01:00

1815

1822

1824

1838

1861

1875

1886

Smoking

2011-10-01T14:01:00.000+01:00

by Fitz W. Guerin, 1902

1913

The Woman in Blue

2011-09-29T21:22:00.000+01:00

Paul Burty Haviland (17 June 1880 – 21 December 1950) was an early French-American 20th century photographer, writer and arts critic who was closely associated with Alfred Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession.

The following cyanotypes were taken between 1898 and 1916 and the model is Florence Peterson.

Santiago Rusinol

2011-09-24T19:03:00.000+01:00

Santiago Rusiñol (1861-1931) was a Catalan post-impressionist/Symbolist painter, poet, and playwright.

Rudolf von Laban

2011-09-23T23:56:00.000+01:00

Rudolf von Laban and his dancers, in Ascona, 1914.

Opium

2011-09-20T19:48:00.000+01:00

Women using opium, c.1897

Segundo Chomón

2011-09-18T14:31:00.000+01:00

Segundo Víctor Aurelio Chomón y Ruiz (1871-1929) was a pioneering Spanish film director. He produced many short films in France while working for Pathé Frères and has been compared to Georges Méliès, due to his frequent camera tricks and optical illusions.

A Gust of Wind (1895)

2011-09-17T23:04:00.001+01:00

By Theophile Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923).

Anette Kellerman

2011-09-13T21:32:00.000+01:00

Annette Marie Sarah Kellerman (6 July 1887 – 5 November 1975) was an Australian professional swimmer, vaudeville and film star, and writer. She was one of the first women to wear a one-piece bathing costume and inspired others to follow her example. She is often credited for inventing the sport of synchronised swimming after her 1907 performance of the first water ballet in a glass tank at the New York Hippodrome. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Kellerman was born in Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia, on 6 July 1887, to Australian-born violinist Frederick William Kellerman and his French wife, Alice Ellen Charbonnet, a pianist and music teacher. At the age of 6, a weakness in Kellerman's legs necessitated the wearing of painful steel braces to strengthen them. In order to further overcome her disability, her parents enrolled her in swim classes at Cavill's baths in Sydney. By the age of 13, her legs were practically normal, and by 15, she had mastered all the swimming strokes and won her first race. At this time she was also giving diving displays.

In 1902, Kellerman decided to take her swimming seriously and subsequently won the ladies' 100 yards and mile championships of New South Wales in the record times of 1 minute, 22 seconds and 33 minutes, 49 seconds respectively. In that same year, her parents decided to move to Melbourne, and she was enrolled at Mentone Girls' Grammar School where her mother had accepted a music teaching position. During her time at school, Kellerman gave exhibitions of swimming and diving at the main Melbourne baths, performed a mermaid act at Princes Court entertainment centre and did two shows a day swimming with fish in a glass tank at the Exhibition Aquarium. On 24 August 1905, aged 18, Annette Kellerman was the first woman to attempt to swim the English Channel. After three unsuccessful swims she declared, "I had the endurance but not the brute strength."

Kellerman was famous for advocating the right of women to wear a one-piece bathing suit, which was controversial at the time. According to an Australian magazine, "In the early 1900s, women were expected to wear cumbersome dress and pantaloon combinations when swimming. In 1907, at the height of her popularity, Kellerman was arrested on Revere Beach, Massachusetts, for indecency - she was wearing one of her fitted one-piece costumes." The popularity of her one-piece suits resulted in her own line of women's swimwear. The "Annette Kellermans", as they were known, were the first step to modern swimwear.

In 1908, after a study of 3000 women, Dr Dudley A. Sargent of Harvard University dubbed her the Perfect Woman because of the similarity of her physical attributes to the Venus de Milo. Kellerman married her American-born manager, James Raymond Louis Sullivan, on or around 26 November 1912 at Danbury, Connecticut.

In 1916, Kellerman became the first major actress to do a nude scene when she appeared fully nude in A Daughter of the Gods. Made by Fox Film Corporation, Daughter of the Gods was the first million-dollar film production. Like many of Kellerman's other films, this is now considered a lost film as no copies are known to exist. The majority of Kellerman's films had themes of aquatic adventure. She performed her own stunts including diving from ninety-two feet into the sea and sixty feet into a pool of crocodiles. Many times she would play mermaids named Annette or variations of her own name.

Her "fairy tale films", as she called them, started with The Mermaid (1911), in which she was the first actress to wear a swimmable mermaid costume on film, paving the way for future screen sirens such as Glynis Johns, Esther Williams and Daryl Hannah. She designed her own mermaid swimming costumes and sometimes made them herself. Kellerman appeared in one of the last films made in Prizma Color, Venus of the South Seas (1924), a U.S./New Zealand co-production where one reel of the 55-minute film was in color and underwater. Venus of the South Seas was restored by the Library of Congress in 2004 and is the only feature film starring Annette Kellerman known to exist in its complete form.

In addition to her film and stage career, Kellerman wrote several books including How To Swim (1918), Physical Beauty: How to Keep It (1919), a book of children's stories titled Fairy Tales of the South Seas (1926) and My Story, an unpublished autobiography. She also wrote numerous mail order booklets on health, beauty and fitness. A lifelong vegetarian, Kellerman owned a health food store in Long Beach, California.

She and her husband returned to live in Australia in 1970, and in 1974 she was honoured by the International Swimming Hall of Fame at Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She remained active well into old age continuing to swim and exercise until a short time before her death. Preceded by her husband in death, Annette Kellerman died in hospital at Southport, Queensland, Australia, on 5 November 1975, aged 88 and was cremated with Roman Catholic rites. Her remains were scattered in the Great Barrier Reef. She had no children.

source: Wikipedia

Gustave Marissiaux

2011-09-09T21:56:00.000+01:00

Gustave Marissiaux (1872 - 1929) was a french pictorialist. During his lifetime he was internationally recognized and honoured but after his death his work was fast forgotten. He lived in Liège (Belgium) where he worked as a portrait photographer. But he was also an active art photographer and member of the "Association Belge de la Photography" and the "Société française de Photographie". In his artwork he used the Platinum Print, Bromoil, Sury Process and the Photogravure.

Nude Study, 1911

Ambrotype 1860

2011-09-08T14:09:00.000+01:00

A veteran and his wife (1860), unknown(?)

Anne Brigman

2011-09-06T15:18:00.000+01:00

The Source, 1907

Anne Wardrope (Nott) Brigman (1869–1950) was an American photographer and one of the original members of the Photo-Secession movement in America. Her most famous images were taken between 1900 and 1920, and depict nude women in primordial, naturalistic contexts.

The Breeze

Brigman was born in the Nuuanu Valley above Honolulu, Hawaii on 3 December 1869. She was the oldest of eight children born to Mary Ellen Andrews Nott, whose parents had moved to Hawaii as missionaries in 1828. Her father, Samuel Nott, was from Gloucester, England. When she was sixteen her family moved to Los Gatos, California, and nothing is known about why they moved or what they did after arriving in California. In 1894 she married a sea captain, Martin Brigman. She accompanied her husband on several voyages to the South Seas, returning to Hawaii at least once.

Storm Tree, 1915

Imogen Cunningham recounts a story supposedly told to her firsthand that on one of the voyages Brigman fell and injured herself so badly that one breast was removed. Whether this is true or not, after 1900 she stopped traveling with her husband and became active in the growing bohemian community of the San Francisco Bay area. She was close friends with the writer Jack London and the poet and naturalist Charles Keeler. Perhaps seeking her own artistic outlet, she began photographing in 1901. Soon she was exhibiting in local photographic salons, and within two years she had developed a reputation as a master of pictorial photography.

The Heart of the Storm

In late 1902 she came across a copy of Camera Work and was captivated by the images and the writings of Alfred Stieglitz. She wrote Stieglitz praising him for the journal, and Stieglitz in turn soon became captivated with Brigman's photography. In 1902 he listed her as an official member of the Photo-Secession, which, because of Stieglitz's notoriously high standards and because of her distance from the other members in New York, is a significant indicator of her artistic status. IN 1906 she was listed as a Fellow of the Photo-Secession, the only photographer west of the Mississippi to be so honored.

Dawn

From 1903 to 1908 Stieglitz exhibited Brigman's photos many times, and her photos were printed in three issues of Stieglitz's journal Camera Work. During this same period he often exhibited and corresponded under the name "Annie Brigman", but in 1911 she dropped the "i" and was known from then on as "Anne". Although she was well known for her artistic work, she did not do any commercial or portrait work like some of her comptemporaries. In 1910 she and her husband separated, and she moved into a house with her mother. By 1913 she was living alone "in a tiny cabin...with a red dog...and 12 tame birds".

Finis

She continued to exhibit for many years and was included in the landmark International Exhibition at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in New York in 1911 and the Internation Exhibition of Pictorial Photography in San Francisco in 1922. In California, she became revered by West Coast photographers and her photography influenced many of her contemporaries. Here, she was also known as an actress in local plays, and as a poet performing both her own work and more popular pieces such as Enoch Arden. An admirer of the work of George Wharton James, she photographed him on at least one occasion.

Soul of the blasted pine

She continued photography through the 1940s, and her work evolved from a pure pictorial style to more of a straight photography approach, although she never really abandoned her original vision. Her later close-up photos of sandy beaches and vegetation are fascinating abstractions in black-and-white. In the mid-1930s she also began taking creative writing classes, and soon she was writing poetry. Encouraged by her writing instructor, she put together a book of her poems and photographs call Songs of a Pagan. She found a publisher for the book in 1941, but because of World War II the book was not printed until 1949, one year before she died. Brigman died on 8 February 1950 at her sister's home in El Monte, California.

The cleft of the rock

Brigman's photographs frequently focused on the female nude, dramatically situated in natural landscapes or trees. Many of her photos were taken in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in carefully selected locations and featuring elaborately staged poses. Brigman often featured herself as the subject of her images. After shooting the photographs, she would extensively touch up the negatives with paints, pencil, or superimposition.

The Dying Cedar

Brigman's deliberately counter-cultural images suggested bohemianism and female liberation. Her work challenged the establishment's cultural norms and defied convention, instead embracing pagan antiquity. The raw emotional intensity and barbaric strength of her photos contrasted with the carefully calculated and composed images of Stieglitz and other modern photographers.

source: Wikipedia

Imogen Cunningham

2011-09-03T21:01:00.000+01:00

Imogen Cunningham (April 12, 1883 – June 24, 1976) was an American photographer.

The Honesty Plant, 1912

Sun and Wind, 1910

Dream, 1910

The Wind, 1910

The Odor of Pomegranates

2011-08-31T18:14:00.000+01:00

platinum print by Zaida Ben-Yusuf, c.1899.

The Blue Bird

2011-08-30T00:09:00.000+01:00

The Blue Bird, by Maurice Tourneur, in 1918.

Wood Nymph

2011-08-29T13:24:00.001+01:00

By Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952).

Claude Débussy

2011-08-28T14:33:00.000+01:00

Claude Debussy entertaining guests at the piano, in 1893.

Mélisande

2011-08-27T22:29:00.001+01:00

Mary Garden as Mélisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, 1908, by Davis Eickmeyer.

Grandes Armazéns do Chiado 1910

2011-08-26T10:40:00.000+01:00

Grandes Armazéns do Chiado, Winter Catalog 1910

Lady Hawarden

2011-08-24T18:54:00.001+01:00

Clementina Maude, Viscountess Hawarden, née Fleeming (1 June 1822 – 19 January 1865), commonly known as Lady Clementina Hawarden, was a noted portrait photographer of the 1860s. A daughter of Admiral Charles Elphinstone Fleeming, she married Cornwallis Maude, 4th Viscount Hawarden in 1845; the couple had ten children. She turned to photography in late 1857 or early 1858, whilst living on the estate of her husband's family in Dundrum, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. A move to London in 1859 allowed her to set up a studio in her elegant home in South Kensington. There she took many of the characteristic portraits for which she is principally remembered, many of which include her children.

The Viscountess Hawarden first exhibited in the annual exhibition of the Photographic Society of London in January 1863 and was elected a member of the Society the following March. Her work was widely acclaimed for its "artistic excellence", winning her the medal for composition at the exhibition.

source: Wikipedia

Autochrome

2011-08-23T10:40:00.002+01:00

Autochromes from 1910s.

anonymous

by Jules Gervais Courtellemont

anonymous

idem

Ruth St. Denis

2011-08-22T14:21:00.000+01:00

Ruth St. Denis (January 20, 1879 – July 21, 1968) was an early modern dance pioneer. She was born in 1879 on a New Jersey farm. The daughter of a strong-willed and highly educated woman ( Ruth Emma Dennis was a physician by training), St. Denis was encouraged to study dance from an early age. Her early training included Delsarte technique, ballet lessons with the Italian ballerina Maria Bonfante, social dance forms and skirt dancing.

Ruth began her professional career in New York City in 1892, where she worked as a skirt dancer in a dime museum and in vaudeville houses. Dime museums featured "leg dancers" (female dancers whose legs were visible under their short skirts) in brief dance routines. St. Denis was probably required to perform her routine as many as eleven times a day.

In 1898, the young vaudeville dancer was noticed by David Belasco, a well-known and highly successful Broadway producer and director. He hired her to perform with his large company as a featured dancer, and was also responsible for giving her the stage name "St. Denis." Under Belasco's influence, Ruthie Dennis became Ruth St. Denis, toured with his production of "Zaza" around the United States and in Europe, and was exposed to the work of several important European artists, including the Japanese dancer Sado Yacco and the great English actress, Sarah Bernhardt.

St. Denis' artistic imagination was ignited by these artists. She became very interested in the dance/drama of Eastern cultures, including those of Japan, India and Egypt. She was also influenced by Bernhardt's melodramatic acting style, in which the tragic fate of her characters took center stage. After 1900, St. Denis began formulating her own theory of dance/drama based on the dance and drama techniques of her early training, her readings into philosophy, scientology and the history of ancient cultures, and the work of artists like Yacco and Bernhardt.

In 1904, during one of her tours with Belasco, she saw a poster of the goddess Isis in an ad for Egyption for Egyption Deities cigarettes. The image of the goddess sparked her imagination and she began reading about Egypt, and then India.

By 1905, St. Denis left Belasco's company to begin a career as a solo artist. She had designed an elaborate and exotic costume and a series of steps telling the story of a mortal maid who was loved by the god Krishna. Entitled "Radha" this solo dance (with three extras) was first performed in Proctor's Vaudeville House in New York City. "Radha" was an attempt to translate St. Denis' understanding of Indian culture and mythology to the American dance stage. As a solo artist, St. Denis was quickly discovered by a society woman, Mrs. Orlando Rouland. With the aid of her wealthy patron, she began performing "Radha" at private matinees in respectable Broadway theatres.

Like Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan before her, St. Denis felt that Europe might have more to offer her. She left with her mother for London in 1906, and traveled the continent performing her "translations" until 1909, when she returned to give a series of well-received concerts in New York City and on tour in the United States. During the next five years she continued to tour, building her reputation as an exotic dancer with an artistic bent, a "classic dancer" in the same category as Isadora Duncan.

After 1911, the vogue for solo dancers on the professional stage died down. To support herself, St. Denis often gave private lessons to society women, including Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. In 1912, St. Denis' major patron, Henry Harris, died on the Titanic. In serious financial trouble, St. Denis went back to the studio and came up with a new exotic dance, this time on a Japanese theme. "O-Mika" was more culturally authentic than her other 'translations' but it was not a success.

Around 1913, St. Denis began adding other performers to her touring productions. In 1914 she hired Ted Shawn, a stage dancer with strong Delsartean leanings, and his partner, Hilda Beyer, to perform ballroom numbers. St. Denis continued to perform her solo "translations" while Shawn brought a range of popular dance forms, from ragtime to tangos, into the act. Soon after, St. Denis and Shawn became dance partners and lovers, and St. Denis' career as a solo artist was over.

Ruth St. Denis was the first American dancer to incorporate the traditions and practices of the vaudeville stage into the world of serious concert dance. Her solo "translations" were unique combinations of dramatic mise en scene and contemporary dance steps that successfully combined theatrical and concert dance traditions.

One of her more famous pupils was Martha Graham, who attended Ms. St. Denis' school of dance, Denishawn, that she had started with her husband, Ted Shawn. Doris Humphrey, Evan Burrows Fontaine and Charles Weidman also studied at Denis Shawn, and Graham, Humphrey, Weidman and the future silent film star Louise Brooks all performed as dancers with the Denishawn company. Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn were also instrumental in creating the legendary dance festival, Jacob's Pillow.

(Source: http://www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/ruth.html)

Ruth St Denis is seen here performing the Indian Noche (1932) one of her most famous pieces.

Isadora Duncan

2011-08-19T14:22:00.000+01:00

Angela Isadora Duncan was born in 1877 in San Francisco, California. As a child she studied ballet, Delsarte technique and burlesque forms like skirt dancing. She began her professional career in Chicago in 1896, where she met the theatrical producer Augustin Daly. Soon after, Duncan joined his his touring company, appearing in roles ranging from one of the fairies in a "Mid-summer Night's Dream" to one of the quartet girls in "The Giesha." Duncan traveled to England with the Daly company in 1897. During this time she also danced as a solo performer at a number of society functions in and around London.

Returning to New York City in 1898, Duncan left the Daly company and began performing her solo dances at the homes of wealthy patrons. Calling their program "The Dance and Philosophy," Isadora and her older sister Elizabeth offered society women an afternoon of dance pieces set to Strauss waltzes and Omar Khayyam's "The Rubbaiyat." Influenced by the Americanized Delsarte movement, these "afternoons" received little serious notice from the press. Duncan became discouraged by the lack of enthusiasm, and, with her mother and siblings, set sail for London in 1899.

In the years between 1899 and 1907, Duncan lived and worked in the great cities of Europe. In London in 1900 she met a group of artists and critics - led by the painter Charles Halle and the music critic John Fuller-Maitland - who introduced her to Greek statue art, Italian Renaissance paintings and symphonic music. During this perioed, Fuller-Maitland convinced her to stop dancing to recitations and to begin using the music of Chopin and Beethoven for her inspiration.

In Germany, Duncan was introduced to the philosopy of Frederick Nietzsche, and soon after began formulating her own philosophy of dance. In 1903 she delivered a speech in Berlin called "The Dance of the Future." In it she argued that the dance of the future would be similar to the dance of the ancient Greeks, natural and free. Duncan accused the ballet of "deforming the beautiful woman's body" and called for its abolition. She ended her speech by stating that "the dance of the future will have to become again a high religious art as it was with the Greeks. For art which is not religious is not art, is mere merchandise." It was during this period that Duncan began clarifying her theory of natural dance, identifying the source of the body's natural movement in the solar plexus.

Between 1904 and 1907, Duncan lived and worked in Greece, Germany, Russia and Scandanavia. During this period she worked with many famous artists, including the scenic designer Gordon Craig and the Russian theatre director Constantin Stanislavsky. In 1904, Duncan established her first school of dance in Grunewald, a suburb outside of Berlin. There, she began to develop her theories of dance education and to assemble her famous dance group, later known as the Isadorables.

Duncan returned to the United States in 1908 to begin a series of tours throughout the country. At first, her performances were poorly received by music critics, who felt that the dancer had no right to "interpret" symphonic music. But the audiences grew more and more enthusiastic, and when Duncan returned to Europe in 1909, she was famous throughout the world. In the following years, Duncan created and maintained schools in France, Germany and Russia. She continued to sponsor young dancers and to give her solo performances. She returned to the United States several times, touring the country, but she never lived there again. In 1927, Duncan was killed in an automobile accident in Paris.

Isadora Duncan was the first American dancer to :

- develop and label a concept of natural breathing, which she identified with the ebb and flow of ocean waves;

- define movement based on natural and spiritual laws rather than on formal considerations of geometric space;

- rigorously compare dance to the other arts, defending it as a primary art form worthy of "high art" status;

- develop a philosophy of the dance;

- deemphasize scenery and costumes in favor of a simple stage setting and simple costumes. By doing this, Duncan suggested that watching a dancer dance was enough.

Source: http://www.pitt.edu/~gillis/dance/isadora.html

Movie Theatre Etiquette

2011-08-17T16:17:00.001+01:00

1910s

Loie Fuller

2011-08-16T00:09:00.000+01:00

Loie Fuller

2011-08-15T20:04:00.001+01:00

Loie Fuller (January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928) was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques.

Born Marie Louise Fuller in the Chicago suburb of Fullersburg, now Hinsdale, Illinois, Fuller began her theatrical career as a professional child actress and later choreographed and performed dances in burlesque (as a skirt dancer), vaudeville, and circus shows. An early free dance practitioner, Fuller developed her own natural movement and improvisation techniques. Fuller combined her choreography with silk costumes illuminated by multi-coloured lighting of her own design.

Although Fuller became famous in America through works such as Serpentine Dance (1891), she felt that she was not taken seriously by the public who still thought of her as an actress. Her warm reception in Paris during a European tour persuaded Fuller to remain in France and continue her work. A regular performer at the Folies Bergère with works such as Fire Dance, Fuller became the embodiment of the Art Nouveau movement.

Fuller's pioneering work attracted the attention, respect, and friendship of many French artists and scientists, including Jules Chéret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, François-Raoul Larche, Henri-Pierre Roché, Auguste Rodin, Franz von Stuck, Maurice Denis, Thomas Theodor Heine, Koloman Moser, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Marie Curie. Fuller held many patents related to stage lighting including chemical compounds for creating color gel and the use of chemical salts for luminescent lighting and garments. Fuller was also a member of the French Astronomical Society.

Loie Fuller by Toulouse-Lautrec

Loie Fuller's original stage name was "Louie". In modern French "L'ouie" is the word for a sense of hearing. When Fuller reached Paris she gained a nickname which was a pun on "Louie"/"L'ouie". She was renamed "Loïe" - this nickname is a corruption of the early or Medieval French "L'oïe", a precursor to "L'ouie", which means "receptiveness" or "understanding".

Loie Fuller by Frederick Glasier, 1902

Fuller formed a close friendship with Queen Marie of Romania; their extensive correspondence has been published. Fuller, through a connection at the U.S. embassy in Paris played a role in arranging a U.S. loan for Romania during World War I. Later, during the period when the future Carol II of Romania was alienated from the Romanian royal family and living in Paris with his mistress Magda Lupescu, she befriended them; they were unaware of her connection to Carol's mother Marie. Fuller initially advocated to Marie on behalf of the couple, but later schemed unsuccessfully with Marie to separate Carol from Lupescu.

Loie Fuller by Koloman Moser, 1901

Fuller occasionally returned to America to stage performances by her students, the "Fullerets" or Muses, but spent the end of her life in Paris where she died of pneumonia on January 1, 1928 at age 65.

Source: Wikipedia

Salome

2011-08-14T23:13:00.001+01:00

Salome, by F. Luis Mora, 1899

Mistinguett

2011-08-13T22:06:00.000+01:00

Mistinguett (5 April 1875 – 5 January 1956) was a French actress and singer, whose birth name was Jeanne Bourgeois. She inspired a fashion for long headresses and gowns, which became a staple of French music hall.

Jeanne Bourgeois originated from Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise, Île-de-France, France. At an early age she aspired to be an entertainer. She began as a flower seller in a restaurant in her home town, singing popular ballads as she sold her flowers. When a song-writing acquaintance made up the name Miss Tinguette, Jeanne liked it. She made it her own by joining it together and eventually dropping the second S and the final E (Mistinguett).

Jeanne Bourgeois made her debut as Mistinguett at the Casino de Paris in 1895, and appeared also in shows as the Folies Bergère, Moulin Rouge, and Eldorado. Her risqué routines captivated Paris and she went on to become the most popular French entertainer of her time and the highest paid female entertainer in the world.

She incorporated flamboyance and a zest for the theatrical. In 1919 her legs were insured for 500,000 francs. She had a long relationship with the younger Maurice Chevalier.

She first recorded her signature song "Mon Homme" in 1916. It was popularised under its English title "My Man" by Fanny Brice, and has become a standard in the repertoire of numerous pop and jazz singers.

This is the last recording of the popular song, in 1949:

During a tour of the United States, she was asked by Time magazine to explain her popularity. Her answer was: "It is a kind of magnetism. I say 'Come closer' and draw them to me." Jeanne Bourgeois' career lasted over fifty years. She died at the age of 80.

Source: Wikipedia

'Arf a pint of ale

2011-08-12T21:48:00.000+01:00

Gus Elen (22 July 1862 – 17 February 1940) was a British music hall singer. He achieved success from 1891, performing cockney songs and sketches as a 'coster' comedian, dressed in the clothes of a poor East End costermonger, coming himself from a similar background.

Many of Elen's songs spoke of the living conditions of ordinary workers. The appeal to his audience, many of whom would be poor, was both to laugh at the difficulties of working class life, and to celebrate one's capacity for survival.

Artist and Models

2011-08-11T00:22:00.001+01:00

c. 1900, anonymous

The Dying Swan

2011-08-10T01:03:00.000+01:00

Vera Karalli dances ballet in the haunting Russian silent The Dying Swan (1917), directed by Evgeni Bauer. The music is by Camille Saint-Saëns. The actress - dancer Vera Karalli was involved in the plot to kill Rasputin.

Asta Nielsen

2011-08-08T22:22:00.001+01:00

Asta Nielsen (11 September 1881 - 24 May 1972), was a Danish silent film actress who was one of the most popular leading ladies of the 1910s and one of the first international movie stars. Seventy of Nielsen's 74 films were made in Germany where she was known simply as Die Asta.

Nielsen began her film career in 1909, starring in director Urban Gad's 1910 tragedy Afgrunden ("The Abyss"). Nielsen's minimalist acting style was evidenced in her successful portrayal of a naive young woman lured into a tragic life. Her overt sexuality in the film's "gaucho dance" scene established the erotic quality for which Nielsen became known.

Noted for her large dark eyes, mask-like face and boyish figure, Nielsen most often portrayed strong-willed passionate women trapped by tragic consequences. Due to the erotic nature of her performances, Nielsen's films were heavily censored in the United States and her work remained relatively obscure to American audiences.

She is credited with transforming movie acting from overt theatricality to a more subtle naturalistic style. Nielsen founded her own film studio in Berlin during the 1920s, but returned to Denmark in 1937 after the rise of Nazism in Germany.

During the Second World War she provided money for Allan O. Hagedorff, a young Dane living in Germany, to assist Jews. Using money provided by Nielsen, Hagedorff sent so many food parcels to the Theresienstadt concentration camp that he was warned by the Gestapo.

She was married three times. A private figure in her later years, Nielsen became a collage artist and an author.

Source: Wikipedia

The seaside smile

2011-08-07T15:15:00.000+01:00

The greatest of the 'male impersonators' on the music hall stage. Born in 1864, she made her last appearance at the London Coliseum in May 1920 and died in 1952.

Vesta Victoria

2011-08-06T00:05:00.000+01:00

Vesta Victoria (26 November 1873 - 7 April 1951) was an English music hall singer and comedian. Although born in Leeds, Yorkshire, Vesta adopted a Cockney persona on stage. She began her career as a small child appearing with her father.

Her solo career took off in 1892 when Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow became a hit. Vesta's comic laments delivered in deadpan style were as popular in the United States as in her homeland and she toured and recorded in America in 1907, where she was one of the most highly paid vaudeville stars. Between appearances, she lived on a houseboat, moored near Hampton Court.

In the late 20s and early 30s a revival in interest in music-hall comics saw a few of the surviving stars of early 20th Century Music Hall in studio recording medley's of their past hits for the 'Regal' and 'Columbia' labels. This one of Vesta Victoria was recorded in studio with Orchestra on 10th September 1931, the same day as Harry Champion's Medley. Vesta sings Waiting At The Church, He Calls Me His Own Grace Darling, It's All Right In The Summertime, Now I Have To Call Him Father, Poor John, and her most famous hit, Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me A Bow-Wow.

Vesta retired after World War I but re-recorded many of her hits in 1931 in a series of Old-Time Medleys, and appeared in the Royal Variety Show of 1932.

She also appeared in a number of films in the 1930s. She died at Hampstead on April 7, 1951.

Source: Classic Radio Comedy

Aubrey Beardsley

2011-08-05T13:17:00.000+01:00

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 1872 – 16 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, executed in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau style and the poster movement was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis.

Source: Wikipedia

Vice and Virtue

2011-08-02T00:31:00.001+01:00

The Two Ways of Life, by Oscar Rejlander, 1857.

Sufragettes

2011-08-01T22:26:00.000+01:00

1911

Autour d'une cabine

2011-07-25T22:24:00.000+01:00

by Emile Reynaud - 1894.

Reynaud created animations by developing the praxinoscope toy he had already marketed. The background was projected separately and the moving figures were painted on individual cells, then mounted into a paper and leather band and projected using a large praxinoscope (which operated using mirrors. The band was manipulated by hand. The operator could move back wares and forwards to repeat actions or speed or slow up a scene. The music was live.

The Dying Swan

2011-07-23T19:50:00.001+01:00

Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) in her signature ballet, The Dying Swan, choreographed by Mikhail Fokine in 1905.

Whispering

2011-07-22T22:57:00.000+01:00

"Whispering" played by George Gershwin for the piano roll with photos of Gabrielle Ray (1883-1973) - a British stage actress and dancer, best known for her roles in Edwardian Musical Comedy.

La Goulue

2011-07-21T00:03:00.000+01:00

Louise Weber (13 July 1866 – 30 January 1929) was a French can-can dancer who performed under the stage name of La Goulue ("the glutton"). She also was referred to as the Queen of Montmartre.

Very little is known about her early childhood, but it is believed that Louise Weber was born into a Jewish family from Alsace that eventually moved to Clichy, near Paris. Her mother worked in a laundry. As an impoverished young girl who loved to dance, Weber is said to have enjoyed dressing up in laundry customers' expensive clothing and pretending to be a glamorous star on a great stage. At age 16, she was working with her mother in the laundry, but behind her mother's back began sneaking off to a dance hall dressed in one of their customer's "borrowed" dresses.

Dancing at small clubs around Paris, Louise Weber quickly became a popular personality, liked for both her dancing skills and her charming audacious behavior. In her routine, she teased the male audience by swirling her raised dress to reveal the heart embroidered on her panties and would do a high kick while flipping off a man's hat with her toe. Because of her frequent habit of picking up a customer's glass and quickly downing its contents while dancing past their table, she was affectionately nicknamed "La Goulue" (The Glutton).

by Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892

Eventually she met the Montmartre painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir who introduced her to a group of models who earned extra money posing for the community's artists and photographers. Achille Delmaet, husband of Marie Juliette Louvet, would later find fame as the photographer who had taken many nude photographs of La Goulue.

Louise Weber was taken under the wing of Jacques Renaudin (1843–1907), a wine merchant who danced in his spare time under the stage name "Valentin le Désossé". They danced at the renowned Moulin Rouge in Montmartre when it first opened, performing an early form of the Cancan known as the "chalut." The two were instant stars, but it was Weber who stole the show with her outrageously captivating conduct.

Booked as a permanent headliner, La Goulue became synonymous with the Cancan and the Moulin Rouge nightclub. The toast of Paris and the highest paid entertainer of her day, she became one of the favorite subjects for Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, immortalized by his portraits and posters of her dancing at the Moulin Rouge.

Having achieved both fame and fortune, in 1895 Weber decided to part company with the Moulin Rouge and strike out on her own. She invested a considerable amount of money into a show that travelled the country as part of a large fair; but her fans who had lined up to buy tickets at the Moulin Rouge did not take to the new setting, and her business venture turned into a dismal failure. Following the closure of her show, La Goulue disappeared from the public eye. Suffering from depression, she drank heavily and dissipated the small fortune she had accrued while dancing.

Alcoholic and destitute, La Goulue returned to Montmartre in 1928. Selling peanuts, cigarettes, and matches on a street corner near the Moulin Rouge, no one recognized the severely overweight and haggard former Queen of Montmartre. She died a year later and was buried in the Cimetière de Pantin in the Paris suburb of Pantin, but later her remains were transferred to the Cimetière de Montmartre.

source: Wikipedia

Georges de Feure

2011-07-20T15:43:00.000+01:00

Georges de Feure (real name Georges Joseph van Sluÿters, 6 September 1868 – 26 November 1943) was a French painter, theatrical designer, and industrial art designer in the symbolism and Art Nouveau styles.

1901

The Princess Ylsdin, 1890s

The Voice of Evil, 1895

Marie Lloyd

2011-07-09T20:17:00.005+01:00

Matilda Alice Victoria Wood (12 February 1870 – 7 October 1922) was an English music hall singer, best known as Marie Lloyd. Her ability to add lewdness to the most innocent of lyrics led to frequent clashes with the guardians of morality. Her performances articulated the disappointments of life, especially for working-class women.

Born in Hoxton, London, her early interest in the music hall was fostered by her father John, who worked part-time in the nearby Royal Eagle Tavern. Marie formed her sisters into a singing group called the Fairy Bells Minstrels, singing temperance songs in local missions and church halls, costumed by their mother Matilda Mary Caroline Wood. In her teens, the younger Matilda Wood adopted the name Marie Lloyd and quickly became one of the most famous of English music hall singers and comediennes. Her first major success was The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery.

Lloyd's songs, although perfectly harmless by modern standards, began to gain a reputation for being "racy" and filled with double entendre, ("She'd never had her ticket punched before" for example) largely thanks to the manner in which she sang them, adding winks and gestures, and creating a conspiratorial relationship with her audience. She became the target of Vigilance or "Watch" committees and others opposing music-hall licences. She liked to claim that any immorality was in the minds of the complainants, and in front of these groups would sing her songs "straight" to show their supposed innocence.

In one famous incident, she was summoned before one of these committees and asked to sing her songs. She sang "Oh! Mr Porter"; and "A Little of What you Fancy" in such a sweet innocent way that the committee had no reason to find anything amiss. She then rendered the drawing-room ballad "Come into the Garden Maud" in such an obscene way that the committee was shocked into silence. She did herself no favours.

On another occasion, as legend has it, when the moralists objected to her song "I sits among the cabbages and peas", with its daring – for the context – reference to urinating, she transformed the lyrics, and sang instead "I sits among the cabbages and leeks" to the roars of laughter of her adoring audience.

The following year she made her first visit to the United States. Her "blue" reputation preceded her and she quickly gave an interview to the New York Telegraph newspaper that carried her quote:

They don't pay their sixpences and shillings at a music hall to hear the Salvation Army. If I was to try to sing highly moral songs, they would fire ginger beer bottles and beer mugs at me. I can't help it if people want to turn and twist my meanings.

Although popular enough to command her own fees, Lloyd backed and supported the 1907 strike for better terms by music-hall performers. She commented on her support:

We (the stars) can dictate our own terms. We are fighting not for ourselves, but for the poorer members of the profession, earning thirty shillings to £3 a week. For this they have to do double turns, and now matinées have been added as well. These poor things have been compelled to submit to unfair terms of employment, and I mean to back up the federation in whatever steps are taken.

Marie performed on picket lines throughout the strike, and in a fund raising performance at the Scala Theatre.

During the First World War, like most music hall artists, she enthusiastically supported recruitment for the army. The recruitment went on in the music halls themselves, often in the tone "Two shillings for the first man to sign up tonight". In particular she sang the song I didn't like you much before you joined the army, John, but I do like you, cockie, now you've got your khaki on. She also sang in many free concerts for the masses of wounded returning from the trenches.

Her private life was also controversial. Her first marriage to Percy Courtenay was a stormy one. Despite Marie giving birth to a baby daughter whom they named after Marie’s mother, Matilda, their marriage hit the rocks when Percy began drinking heavily and treating Marie badly. By 1893 they were living all but separate lives. Percy, however, did not wish to let Marie – or her money – go, and would constantly show up at her performances and attempt to get backstage. In the end, she notified the police, telling them she felt threatened by him. Percy was arrested, and in court, the Magistrate found against him. Their marriage ended in 1894.

Marie met and fell in love with the singer Alec Hurley and in 1901 they went to Australia, where they performed on stage together with tremendous success. She and Alec had lived together for four years before Percy Courtenay finally divorced her in 1905. They were married the following year.

By 1910 Marie and Alec’s marriage was becoming more and more unhappy, thanks in no small part to Marie meeting – and falling in love with – young Irish jockey Bernard Dillon. He was 22 and Marie was 40 and in no time Marie had left Alec and moved in with Bernard. A year later, after the Jockey Club revoked Dillon's license, his career was finished and he, like her first husband, Percy, turned to drink.

She first appeared in the USA in 1897, but she was refused entry in 1913 for "moral turpitude" when "Mr. and Mrs. Dillon" arrived together, but unmarried. After an enquiry, she was allowed to stay. Alec Hurley died two months later, and Marie and Dillon were married at the British Consulate in Portland, Oregon, on 21 February 1914.

Dillon began drinking heavily and abusing Marie and she began drinking as her own escape. In 1920 they separated. From then on, Marie Lloyd went downhill and although she still worked, it became more and more difficult to get her on to the stage in time. Her voice became weaker and her act shorter.

On 4 October 1922 she was appearing at the Empire Music Hall in Edmonton. During the last song in her act I'm One of the Ruins That Cromwell Knocked About a Bit, she staggered about on the stage. The audience laughed delightedly when she fell, thinking it was all part of the act. However, she was desperately ill, and died at home in Golders Green three days later on 7 October. More than 100,000 people attended Marie's funeral at Hampstead on 12 October 1922.

Source: Wikipedia

John White Alexander

2011-06-30T21:14:00.000+01:00

John White Alexander (7 October 1856 – 31 May 1915) was an American portrait, figure, and decorative painter and illustrator.

Fancy Dress, 1894

Young Woman Arranging Her Hair

Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1897

The Ring, 1911

Guilhermina Suggia

2011-06-29T11:19:00.000+01:00

Guilhermina Augusta Xavier de Medim Suggia Carteado Mena, known as Guilhermina Suggia, (27 June 1885 – 30 July 1950) was a Portuguese cellist. She studied in Germany and with Pablo Casals, and built an international reputation.

She spent many years living in England, where she was particularly celebrated. She retired in 1939, but emerged from retirement to give concerts in Britain. Her last was in 1949, the year before her death. Suggia bequeathed an important British scholarship for young cellists, which has been granted to performers including Rohan de Saram, Jacqueline du Pré and Steven Isserlis.

Suggia was born in Porto to a family of Italian descent. Her father was a competent musician and taught her musical theory and cello. Such was her progress that by the age of 12 she was appointed principal cellist of the local orchestra, the Orpheon Portuense. In 1904, under the patronage of Queen Maria Amélia of Portugal, she went to study at the Leipzig Conservatoire under Julius Klengel.

Within a year Suggia was asked to appear as a soloist with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under its conductor, Arthur Nikisch. From 1906 to 1912 she lived and worked in Paris with the cellist Pablo Casals.It was generally believed, incorrectly, that the two were married, and Suggia was sometimes billed as as "Mme P. Casals-Suggia". She began to tour internationally, building her reputation. She and Casals were rated as "the world's leading cellists."

After they separated, in 1913, Suggia retained her admiration for Casals, describing him as pre-eminent among living cellists. In 1914 she formed a trio with the violinist Jelly d'Arányi and the pianist Fanny Davies.She was particularly celebrated in England, where she lived in the 1920s and 1930s. She was a frequent visitor to Lindisfarne Castle in northern England, where a cello now rests in the Music Room in commemoration of her time spent there.

In 1927, Suggia married José Mena, an X-ray specialist. During World War II, Suggia and her husband returned to Portugal, where she lived in retirement. She visited Britain after the war, giving performances of the Elgar Cello Concerto in aid of charity. She gave her last concerts at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949 and in Bournemouth later the same year. Suggia died in Porto at the age of 62, a year after the death of her husband.

Suggia bequeathed her Stradivarius cello to the Royal Academy of Music in London, to be sold to fund a scholarship for young cellists. The Suggia Gift, established in 1955, has since 1995 been administered by the Musicians' Benevolent Fund. It has been won by cellists including Rohan de Saram (1955), Jacqueline du Pré (1956), Hafliði Hallgrímsson, Steven Isserlis, Raphael Wallfisch and Julian Lloyd Webber. In 2010 it was announced that the 2011 Suggia Gift would be run in association with the 2011 International Guilhermina Suggia Festival, held in her native city.

The large auditorium at Casa da Música in Porto is named Sala Suggia in her honour. Suggia made a small number of gramophone recordings. They include Haydn's D major Concerto with John Barbirolli and Saint-Saëns's A minor Concerto with Lawrence Collingwood. They were reissued on compact disc in 1989.

Guilhermina Suggia plays Kol Nidrei from Max Bruch

Lillie Langtry

2011-06-28T11:20:00.001+01:00

by Edward Poynter 1878

Lillie Langtry (13 October 1853 – 12 February 1929), born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, was a British actress born on the island of Jersey. A renowned beauty, she was nicknamed the "Jersey Lily" and had a number of prominent lovers, including the future king of England, Edward VII.

by Frank Miles

Emilie Charlotte Le Breton was the only daughter of the Dean of Jersey, Rev. William Corbet Le Breton. He gained an unsavoury reputation because of a number of extramarital affairs and, when his wife finally left him in 1880, he left Jersey. He had eloped to Gretna Green with Lillie's mother, Emilie Davis (nee Martin), who was known for her beauty. In 1842, he married her at Chelsea. One of Lillie's ancestors was Richard le Breton,one of the reputed assassins of Saint Thomas a Becket in 1170.

She had six brothers, all but one older than she. Proving too much for her French governess, Lillie was educated by her brothers' tutor, becoming unusually well educated for women of the time. In 1874, twenty-year-old Lillie married twenty-six-year-old Irish landowner Edward Langtry, a widower who had been married to the sister of her brother William's wife. They held their wedding reception at The Royal Yacht Hotel, in St. Helier, Jersey. He was wealthy enough to own a yacht, and Lillie insisted that he take her away from the Channel Islands. Eventually, they rented a place in Belgravia, London.

Lord Ranalegh, a friend of her father and sister-in-law, invited Lillie Langtry to a high-society reception at which she attracted notice for her beauty and wit. In contrast to more elaborate clothing, she wore a simple black dress (which was to become her trademark) and no jewelry. Before the end of the evening, Frank Miles had completed several sketches of her that became very popular on postcards. Another guest, Sir John Everett Millais, eventually painted her portrait. Langtry's nickname, the "Jersey Lily," was taken from the Jersey lily flower (Amaryllis belladonna) – a symbol of Jersey. The nickname was popularised by Millais' portrait, entitled A Jersey Lily. She also sat for Sir Edward Poynter and is depicted in works by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

A Jersey Lily, by John Everett Millais, 1878

She became much sought after in London society, and invitations flooded in. Her fame soon reached royal ears. The Prince of Wales, Albert Edward ("Bertie"), arranged to sit next to Langtry at a dinner party given by Sir Allen Young on 24 May 1877 (her husband was seated at the other end of the table.) Though he was married to Princess Alexandra and had six children, Edward was a well-known philanderer. He became infatuated with Langtry and she became his semi-official mistress. She was even presented to Edward's mother, Queen Victoria. Eventually, a cordial relationship developed between her and Princess Alexandra.

The affair lasted from late 1877 to June 1880.

Edward had the Red House (now Langtry Manor Hotel) constructed in Bournemouth, Dorset in 1877 as a private retreat for the couple. He allowed Langtry to design it. Edward once complained to her, "I've spent enough on you to build a battleship," whereupon she tartly replied, "And you've spent enough in me to float one". The tradition is that their relationship finally cooled when she misbehaved at a dinner party, but she had been eclipsed when Sarah Bernhardt came to London in June 1879.

In July 1879 Langtry began an affair with the Earl of Shrewsbury; in January 1880 Langtry and the earl were planning to run away together. In the fall of 1879 there were rumours published in Town Talk that her husband would divorce her and cite, with others, the Prince of Wales. For some time, the Prince saw little of her. He remained fond of her and spoke well of her in her later career as a theatre actress. With the withdrawal of royal favour, creditors closed in. The Langtrys' finances were not equal to their lifestyle. In October 1880 Langtry sold many of her possessions to meet her debts. Edward Langtry did not officially declare bankruptcy.

In April 1879, Langtry started an affair with Prince Louis of Battenberg, although she was also involved with Arthur Clarence Jones (1854–1930), an old friend. In June 1880, she became pregnant. Her husband was definitely not the father; she led Prince Louis to believe that it was him. When the prince confessed to his parents, they had him assigned to the warship HMS Inconstant. Given some money by the Prince of Wales, Langtry retired to Paris with Arthur Jones. On March 8, 1881, she gave birth to a daughter, Jeanne Marie.

The discovery of Langtry's passionate letters to Arthur Jones in 1878 and their publication by Laura Beatty in 1999 support the idea that Jones was the father. Prince Louis's son, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, had always maintained that his father was the father of Jeanne Marie.

At either the suggestion of her close friend Oscar Wilde or Sarah Bernhardt, Lillie embarked upon a stage career. In December 1881, she made her debut before the London public in She Stoops to Conquer at the Haymarket Theatre. The following autumn, she made her first tour of the United States, to enormous success, which she repeated in subsequent years. While the critics generally condemned her interpretations of roles such as Pauline in the Lady of Lyons or Rosalind in As You Like It, the public loved her. In 1903, she starred in America in The Crossways, written by her in collaboration with J. Hartley Manners. She returned to the United States for tours in 1906 and again in 1912, appearing in vaudeville.

From 1882 to 1891, Langtry had a relationship with the New York City millionaire Frederic Gebhard. With him, she became involved in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing. In 1900, Langtry's horse Merman, ridden by American Tod Sloan, won the Ascot Gold Cup. In 1897, Langtry became an American citizen. She divorced her husband Edward Langtry the same year in Lakeport, California. Edward Langtry died a few months later following an accident. A letter of condolence later written by Langtry to another widow reads in part, "I too have lost a husband, but alas! it was no great loss."

Langtry was involved in a relationship with George Alexander Baird, millionaire amateur jockey and pugilist from April 1891 until his death at New Orleans in March 1893. In 1899, she married the much younger Hugo Gerald de Bathe. He inherited a baronetcy and became a leading owner in the horse-racing world, before retiring to Monte Carlo. During her final years, Langtry resided in a home in Monaco, with her husband living a short distance away. The two saw one another only when she called on him for social gatherings or in brief private encounters. Her constant companion during this time was her close friend, Mathilda Peat, the widow of her butler.

From 1900 to 1903, Langtry was the lessee and manager of London's Imperial Theatre. Keen's Chop House in New York says that Langtry sued them in 1905 over their gentlemen's-only seating policy and won, then sailed in wearing a feather boa and ordered a mutton chop. Langtry died in Monaco in 1929. She was buried in the graveyard of St. Saviour's Church in Jersey.

Langtry used her high public profile to endorse commercial products such as cosmetics and soap, becoming an early example of celebrity endorsement. Her famous ivory complexion brought her income as the first woman to endorse a commercial product, advertising Pears Soap. Her fee was allied to her weight so she was paid 'pound for pound'. Scholars believe the fictitious character of Irene Adler in a Sherlock Holmes novel, who bested the private investigator when he sought an incriminating photograph of her and a European monarch, is based upon Langtry.

source: Wikipedia

The Birth of the Pearl - 1901

2011-06-24T08:04:00.000+01:00

Proprietors of the arcade parlors and nickelodeons with hand-cranked kinetoscopes, designed to provide cheap entertainment for poor, lower-class immigrants in the cities, realized that sex (or erotica) sold - as in this short provocative American Mutoscope & Biograph film about the 'birth of a pearl' in an art tableau. When the curtains were drawn to the side by two clothed chorus girls, a large oyster or clam shell was revealed in front of a painted backdrop of the ocean. As the shell opened, a sleeping or slumbering long-haired young model (wearing a flesh-colored body stocking) was curled up, but then slowly awakened from slumber and stood up.

Après le bal - 1897

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Georges Meliés directed this film, with one of the earliest nude scenes in film history, in which a fully-dressed was helped to undress by a maid for a bath.

The Crystal

2011-06-22T20:53:00.000+01:00

The Crystal, William McGregor Paxton, 1900

Julia Margaret Cameron

2011-06-21T18:16:00.000+01:00

The Parting of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere

Vivien and Merlin

Elaine the Lily Maid of Astolat

The Rosebud Garden of Girls 1868

The Echo 1868

The Day Spring 1865

Mariana 1875

The Mountain Nymph 1866

Sappho 1865

Ophelia

Pre-Raphaelite Study 1870

Gretchen at the Altar 1870-74

Julia Margaret Cameron

2011-06-20T17:53:00.000+01:00

Julia Margaret Cameron by Henry Herschel Hay Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron (11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer. She became known for her portraits of celebrities of the time, and for photographs with Arthurian and other legendary themes. Cameron's photographic career was short, spanning eleven years of her life (1864–1875). She took up photography at the relatively late age of 48, when she was given a camera as a present. Although her style was not widely appreciated in her own day, her work has had an impact on modern photographers, especially her closely cropped portraits.

Julia Margaret Cameron was born Julia Margaret Pattle in Calcutta, India, to James Pattle, a British official of the East India Company, and Adeline de l'Etang, a daughter of French aristocrats. Julia was from a family of celebrated beauties, and was considered an ugly duckling among her sisters. Cameron was educated in France, but returned to India, and in 1838 married Charles Hay Cameron, a jurist and member of the Law Commission stationed in Calcutta, who was twenty years her senior. In 1848, Charles Hay Cameron retired, and the family moved to London, England.

Cameron's sister, Sarah Prinsep, had been living in London and hosted a salon at Little Holland House, the dower house of Holland House in Kensington, where famous artists and writers regularly visited. In 1860, Cameron visited the estate of poet Alfred Lord Tennyson on the Isle of Wight. Julia was taken with the location, and the Cameron family purchased a property on the island soon after. They called it Dimbola Lodge after the family's Ceylon estate.

Charles Darwin

In 1863, when Cameron was 48 years old, her daughter gave her a camera as a present, thereby starting her career as a photographer. Within a year, Cameron became a member of the Photographic Societies of London and Scotland. In her photography, Cameron strove to capture beauty. She wrote, "I longed to arrest all the beauty that came before me and at length the longing has been satisfied."

The basic techniques of soft-focus "fancy portraits", which she later developed, were taught to her by David Wilkie Wynfield. She later wrote that "to my feeling about his beautiful photography I owed all my attempts and indeed consequently all my success". Alfred Lord Tennyson, her neighbour on the Isle of Wight, often brought friends to see the photographer.

Julia Prinsep Jackson, her niece

Cameron was sometimes obsessive about her new occupation, with subjects sitting for countless exposures in the blinding light as she laboriously coated, exposed, and processed each wet plate. The results were, in fact, unconventional in their intimacy and their particular visual habit of created blur through both long exposures, where the subject moved and by leaving the lens intentionally out of focus. This led some of her contemporaries to complain and even ridicule the work, but her friends and family were supportive, and she was one of the most prolific and advanced of amateurs in her time.

Henry Longfellow

During her career, Cameron registered each of her photographs with the copyright office and kept detailed records. Her shrewd business sense is one reason that so many of her works survive today. Another reason that many of Cameron's portraits are significant is because they are often the only existing photograph of historical figures. Many paintings and drawings exist, but, at the time, photography was still a new and challenging medium for someone outside a typical portrait studio.

Mrs. Herbert Fischer

The bulk of Cameron's photographs fit into two categories – closely framed portraits and illustrative allegories based on religious and literary works. In the allegorical works in particular, her artistic influence was clearly Pre-Raphaelite, with far-away looks and limp poses and soft lighting.

Herschel

Cameron's sister ran the artistic scene at Little Holland House, which gave her many famous subjects for her portraits. Some of her famous subjects include: Charles Darwin, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, John Everett Millais, William Michael Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Ellen Terry and George Frederic Watts. Most of these distinctive portraits are cropped closely around the subject's face and are in soft focus. Cameron was often friends with these Victorian celebrities, and tried to capture their personalities in her photos.

"Beatrice" 1866

Cameron's posed photographic illustrations represent the other half of her work. In these illustrations, she frequently photographed historical scenes or literary works, which often took the quality of oil paintings. However, she made no attempt in hiding the backgrounds. Cameron's friendship with Tennyson led to him asking her to photograph illustrations for his Idylls of the King. These photographs are designed to look like oil paintings from the same time period, including rich details like historical costumes and intricate draperies. Today, these posed works are sometimes dismissed by art critics. Nevertheless, Cameron saw these photographs as art, just like the oil paintings they imitated.

"Pomona" 1872

In 1875, the Camerons moved back to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Julia continued to practice photography but complained in letters about the difficulties of getting chemicals and pure water to develop and print photographs. Also, in India, she did not have access to Little Holland House's artistic community. She also did not have a market to distribute her photographs as she had in England. Because of this, Cameron took fewer pictures in India. These pictures were of posed Indian natives, paralleling the posed pictures that Cameron had taken of neighbours in England. Almost none of Cameron's work from India survives. Cameron caught a bad chill and died in Kalutara, Ceylon in 1879.

Julia Jackson, mother of Virginia Woolf

Cameron's niece Julia Prinsep Stephen (née Jackson; 1846–1895), her favourite subject, and mother of the author Virginia Woolf, wrote the biography of Cameron, which appeared in the first edition of the Dictionary of National Biography, 1886. Virginia Woolf wrote a comic portrayal of the "Freshwater circle" in her only play Freshwater. Woolf edited, with Roger Fry, a collection of Cameron's photographs. However, it was not until 1948 that her photography became more widely known when Helmut Gernsheim wrote a book on her work.

Source: Wikipedia

Ellen Terry

2011-06-14T21:08:00.000+01:00

by Julia Margaret Cameron

Dame Ellen Terry, (27 February 1847 – 21 July 1928) was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud. Born into a family of actors, Terry began acting as a child in Shakespeare plays and continued as a teen, in London and on tour.

At sixteen she married the much older artist George Frederick Watts, but they separated within a year. She briefly returned to acting but then began a relationship with the architect Edward William Godwin and retired from the stage for six years. She returned to acting in 1874 and was immediately acclaimed for her portrayal of roles in Shakespeare and other classics.

In 1878 she joined Henry Irving's company as his leading lady, and for more than the next two decades she was considered the leading Shakespearean and comic actress in Britain. Two of her most famous roles were Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. She and Irving also toured with great success in America and Britain.

"Choosing" by George Frederick Watts

Alice Ellen Terry was born in Coventry, England, the third surviving child born into a theatrical family. Her parents, Benjamin (1818–96), of Irish descent, and Sarah (née Ballard, 1819–92), of Scottish ancestry, were comic actors in a touring company based in Portsmouth, (where Sarah's father was a Wesleyan minister) and had eleven children. At least five of them became actors: Kate, Ellen, Marion, Florence and Fred. Two other children, George and Charles, were connected with theater management. Terry's sister Kate was a very successful actress until her marriage and retirement from the stage in 1867. Marion, over a long career, played leading roles in over 125 plays.

Terry's first appearance on stage came at the age of eight, when she appeared opposite Charles Kean as Mamillius in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale at London's Princess's Theatre in 1856. Between 1861 and 1862, Terry was engaged by the Royalty Theatre in London, managed by Madame Albina de Rhona, where she acted with W. H. Kendal, Charles Wyndham and other famous actors. In 1862, she joined her sister Kate in J. H. Chute's stock company at the Theatre Royal in Bristol, where she played a wide variety of parts, including burlesque roles requiring singing and dancing, as well as roles in Much Ado about Nothing, Othello and A Merchant of Venice. In 1863, Chute opened the Theatre Royal in Bath, where Terry, now aged 15, appeared at the opening as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream and then returned to London to join J. B. Buckstone's company at the Haymarket Theatre in Shakespearean roles as well as Sheridan and modern comedies.

as Guinevere

Terry married three times and was involved in numerous relationships. In London, during her engagement at the Haymarket Theatre, she and her sister Kate had their portraits painted by the eminent artist George Frederick Watts. His famous portraits of Terry include Choosing, in which she must select between earthly vanities, symbolised by showy but scent-less camellias, and nobler values symbolised by humble-looking but fragrant violets. His other famous portraits of her include Ophelia and Watchman, together with her sister Kate, The Sisters.

Watts soon proposed marriage to Terry. She was impressed with Watts's art and elegant lifestyle and wished to please her parents by making an advantageous marriage. She left the stage during the run of Our American Cousin, a hit comedy by Tom Taylor at the Haymarket, in which she played Mary Meredith. She and Watts married on 20 February 1864 at St Barnabas, Kensington, seven days before her 17th birthday, when Watts was 46. She was uncomfortable in the role of child bride, and Watts's circle of admirers, including Mrs. Prinsep, were not welcoming. Terry and Watts separated after only ten months of marriage.

"The Sisters", by George Frederick Watts

Nevertheless, during the marriage Terry made the acquaintance of a number of cultured and important and talented people, among them Browning, Tennyson, Gladstone, Disraeli and the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Because of Watts's paintings of her and her association with him, she "became a cult figure for poets and painters of the later Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements, including Oscar Wilde".

She returned to acting by 1866. In 1868, over the objection of her parents, Terry began a relationship with the progressive architect-designer and essayist Edward William Godwin, another man whose taste she admired, whom she had met some years before. With him she retreated to a house, Pigeonwick, in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, retiring for six years from acting. They could not marry, as Terry was still married to Watts and did not finalise a divorce until 1877 – then a scandalous situation. With Godwin she had a daughter, Edith Ailsa Geraldine Craig, in 1869 and a son, Edward Gordon Craig, in 1872. The surname Craig was chosen to avoid the stigma of illegitimacy.

The relationship with Godwin cooled in 1874 amid his preoccupation with his architectural practice and financial difficulties, and Terry returned to her acting career, separating from Godwin in 1875. Even after their separation, however, Godwin continued to design costumes for Terry.

In 1875, Terry gave an acclaimed performance as Portia in The Merchant of Venice at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, produced by the Bancrofts. Oscar Wilde wrote a sonnet, upon seeing her in this role: "No woman Veronese looked upon / Was half so fair as thou whom I behold." She recreated this role many times in her career until her last appearance as Portia at London's Old Vic Theatre in 1917.

Terry married again, in November 1877, to Charles Clavering Wardell Kelly (1839–1885), an actor/journalist but Kelly and Terry separated in 1881. After this, Terry was finally reconciled with her parents, whom she had not seen since she began to live out of wedlock with Godwin.

In 1878, the 30 year old Terry joined Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre as its leading lady, at a generous salary, beginning with Ophelia opposite Irving's Hamlet. Soon, Terry was regarded as the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain, and in partnership with Irving, reigned as such for over 20 years until they left the Lyceum in 1902. In 1879, The Times said of Terry's acting in All is Vanity, or the Cynic's Defeat by Paul Terrier, "Miss Terry's Iris was a performance of inimitable charm, full of movement, ease, and Laughter... the most exquisite harmony and natural grace... such an Iris might well have turned the head of Diogenes himself.

"Lady Macbeth", by John Singer Sargent

Terry made her American debut in 1883, playing Queen Henrietta opposite Irving in Charles I. Among the other roles she essayed on this and six subsequent American tours with Irving were Jeanette, Ophelia, Beatrice, Viola, and her most famous role, Portia. Her last role at the Lyceum was Portia, in 1902, after which she toured in the British the provinces with Irving and his company in the autumn of that year. Whether Irving's relationship with Terry was romantic as well as professional has been the subject of much speculation.

According to Michael Holroyd's book about Irving and Terry, A Strange Eventful History, after Irving's death, Terry stated that she and Irving had been lovers and that: "We were terribly in love for a while". Irving was separated, but not divorced from his wife. Terry was separated from Wardell in 1881, and Irving was godfather to both her children. The two travelled on holiday together, and Irving wrote tender letters to Terry.

by Frederick Hollyer

In London, Terry lived in Earls Court with her children and pets during the 1880s. She first lived in Longridge Road before moving to Barkston Gardens in 1889, but she kept country homes. In 1900, Terry bought her farmhouse in Small Hythe, Kent, England, where she lived for the rest of her life. In 1889, her son joined the Lyceum company as an actor, appearing with the company until 1897, when he retired from the stage to study drawing and produce woodblock engravings. Her daughter, Edith, also played at the Lyceum for several years beginning in 1887, but she eventually turned to stage direction and costume design, creating costumes for Terry and for Lillie Langtry and others early in the twentieth century.

In the 1890s, Terry had struck up a friendship, and conducted a famous correspondence, with Shaw, who wished to begin a theatrical venture with her. In 1903, Terry formed a new theatrical company, taking over management of the Imperial Theatre with her son, after her business partner, Irving, ended his tenure at the Lyceum in 1902. Here she had complete artistic control and could choose the works in which she would appear, as Irving had done at the Lyceum.

The new venture focused on the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. Theatre management turned out to be a financial failure for Terry, who had hoped the venture would showcase the set design and directing talents of her son and the costume designs of her daughter. She then toured England, taking engagements in Nottingham, Liverpool, and Wolverhampton, and created the title role in 1905 in J. M. Barrie's Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire at the Duke of York's Theatre. Irving died in 1905 and, upset by his death, Terry briefly left the stage.

She returned to the theatre again in April 1906, playing Lady Cecily Wayneflete to acclaim in Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion at the Court Theatre and then touring successfully in that role in Britain and America. On 12 June 1906, after 50 years on the stage, a star-studded gala performance was held at the Drury Lane Theatre for Terry's benefit and to celebrate her golden jubilee, at which Enrico Caruso sang.

In 1907 she toured America in Captain Brassbound's Conversion under the direction of Charles Frohman. During that tour, on 22 March 1907, she married co-star, American James Carew, who had appeared with her at the Court Theatre. She was thirty years older than Carew. Terry's acting career continued strongly, but her marriage broke up after only two years.

In 1910 she toured in the provinces and then in the U.S. with much success, acting, giving recitations and lecturing on the Shakespeare heroines. Returning to England, she played roles such as Nell Gwynne in The First Actress by Christopher St. John (Christabel Marshall; 1911). Also in 1911, she recorded scenes from five Shakespeare roles for the Victor Talking Machine Company, the only known recordings of her voice.

In 1914 to 1915, Terry toured Australasia, the U.S. and Britain, again reciting and lecturing on the Shakespeare heroines. While in the U.S., she underwent an operation for the removal of cataracts from both eyes, but the operation was only partly successful. During World War I she performed in many war benefits.

In 1916, she appeared in her first film as Julia Lovelace in Her Greatest Performance and continued to act in London and on tour, also making a few more films through 1922. She also continued to lecture on Shakespeare throughout England and North America. She also gave scenes from Shakespeare plays in music halls under the management of Oswald Stoll. Her last fully staged role was as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet at the Lyric Theatre in 1919.

In 1920 she retired from the stage and in 1922 from film. In 1925 she was made a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, only the second actress to be so honoured. In her last years, she gradually lost her eyesight and suffered from senility. Terry died of a cerebral haemorrhage at her home at Smallhythe Place, near Tenterden, Kent, England, at age 81.

source: Wikipedia

My Lady's bath

2011-06-06T17:40:00.000+01:00

1900

"Foolish Questions"

2011-06-04T23:01:00.001+01:00

Ada Reeve made her first theatrical appearance at four years old in the pantomime "Red Riding Hood" at the Pavilion Theatre in Whitechapel, London on Boxing Day 1878. Two years later, her 'straight' dramatic debut came at Dewsbury in West Yorkshire when she played 'Willie Carlyle' in "East Lynne" with Fred Wright's company of which her parents were members.

She first appeared in London at the Pavilion Theatre, Mile End, over Christmas 1883 when she played 'The Old Man of the Sea' in the pantomime "Sinbad the Sailor". Over the next few years she appeared in a number of productions at the same theatre, including the role as the boy 'Jacques Martel' in "The Crimes of Paris" in the summer of 1884 which she made a considerable success.

Eventually, Ada starred in many early Edwardian Musical Comedies, but also had a talent for Music Hall, of which this song is an example.

Jean Beraud

2011-06-02T16:25:00.000+01:00

Jean Béraud (January 12, 1849 – October 4, 1935) painted many scenes of Parisian daily life during the Belle Époque in a style that stands somewhere between the academic art of the Salon and that of the Impressionists. Béraud's paintings often included truth-based humour and mockery of late 19th century Parisian life.

The New Woman - 1901

2011-05-28T22:48:00.002+01:00

Vesta Tilley

2011-05-24T20:14:00.000+01:00

Vesta Tilley was considered to be the greatest male impersonater in British Music Hall. Born Matilda Alice Powles (13 May 1864 – 16 September 1952), at the age of 11, she adopted the stage name Vesta Tilley becoming the most famous and well paid music hall male impersonator of her day. She was a star in both Britain and the United States for over thirty years.

Tilley was born in Worcestershire in 1864. Her father was a comedy actor and sometimes theatre manager, and Tilley first appeared on stage at the age of three and a half. At the age of six she did her first role in male clothing under the name Pocket Sims Reeves, a parody of then-famous opera singer Sims Reeves. She would come to prefer doing male roles exclusively, saying that "I felt that I could express myself better if I were dressed as a boy". At the age of eleven she debuted in London at the Canterbury Hall the name Vesta Tilley. "Vesta" referred to a brand of safety matches, and "Tilley" is a nickname for Matilda.

Tilley began to be known for her singing of comic numbers,including "Girls are the Ruin of Men" and "Angels without Wings", both by George Dance. Tilley's popularity reached its all-time high point during World War I, when she and her husband ran a military recruitment drive, as did a number of other music-hall stars. In the guise of characters like 'Tommy in the Trench' and 'Jack Tar Home from Sea', Tilley performed songs like "The army of today's all right" and 'Jolly Good Luck to the Girl who Loves a Soldier'.

This is how she got the nickname Britain's best recruiting sergeant - young men were sometimes asked to join the army on stage during her show. She was prepared to be a little controversial. Famously, for example, she sang a song "I've Got a Bit of a Blighty One", about a soldier who was delighted to have been wounded because it allowed him to go back to England and get away from extremely deadly battlefields. "When I think about my dugout / Where I dare not stick my mug out / I'm glad I've got a bit of a blighty one!"

Tilley performed in hospitals and sold War Bonds. Her husband was knighted in 1919 for his own services to the war effort, with Tilley becoming Lady de Frece. Tilley made her last performance in 1920 at the Coliseum Theatre, London, at the age of 56. For the rest of her life she lived as Lady de Frece, moving to Monte Carlo with her husband upon his retirement. She moved back to England after her husband's death in 1935. Vesta Tilley died in London in 1952, aged 88. Her body was buried alongside her husband, at Putney Vale Cemetery.

Source: Wikipedia

When the right girl comes along - Vesta Tilley

Garden of the Moulin Rouge - 1898

2011-05-23T16:00:00.000+01:00

Violet Vanbrugh

2011-05-21T23:37:00.000+01:00

Miss Violet Vanbrugh was born in 1867, the eldest of three children. Her real name was Violet Augusta Mary Barnes. Her father was an official at Exeter Catherdral and the Vicar of Heavitree. Violet had a younger sister Irene (later to be Dame Irene) and a brother Kenneth (Sir Kenneth) both of whom were destined to follow in her footsteps to a theatrical career.

At the age of nineteen Violet travelled to London in pursuit of a stage career and, after some months, she attracted the attention of the great Ellen Terry. Ms Terry helped Violet to secure her first professional stage appearance in Toole's Theatre where she performed as a chorus girl in Burnand's burlesque Faust and Loose.

While it was a strange start for a provincial but well educated girl Violet made the very best of her opportunity. Her next role was in the West End of London in "The Little Pilgrims" (her first speaking part) and, over the next two years, she developed her stagecraft performing in a considerable number of productions in London. By late 1887 and early 1888 she was performing lead Shakespearean roles for the Sarah Thorne company and the following two years saw her touring America with the Kendalls in a variety of roles.

After her return to London her great chance came when Henry Irving offered her the part of Ann Boleyn in his production of King Henry VIII at the Lyceum Theatre (1892). This was followed by a period with Augustin Daly's Theatre company where she met her future husband the actor Arthur Bourchier.

Violet married Bourchier in 1894 and over the next few years frequently appeared on stage with him. It seemed the ideal theatre and marital partnership.. Their first child, a daughter named Prudence, was born in 1902 and she also was destined to become a successful Vanbrugh actress. Violet continued over the forthcoming years to charm her theatre audiences. In 1906 at Stratford upon Avon she played Lady Macbeth to her husband's Macbeth.

There followed an endless stream of dates and roles. They appeared in a film together in 1911 and two years later produced their own silent movie performing scenes from Macbeth. Sadly the off stage relationship had its problems and Violet and Arthur separated in 1916, their marriage was dissolved two years later. Violet continued her stage and film career throughout her life. She died in London in 1942, a strong woman, a pioneer, eclipsed somewhat by her younger sister.

The Gardener's Daughter

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The Gardener's Daughter, by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1867

Keep Off The Grass

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Miss Gertie Millar sings "Keep Off The Grass" 1901. From the Musical Comedy "The Toreador" GaietyTheatre, London, 1901.