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Showing posts with label Photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Photography. Show all posts
Handmade Antique Book in Cyanotype Prussian Blue ! Westinghouse Bowling League 1919 has the Blues
Fat Man Fake Photograph The Press has ALWAYS Lied. Manipulated Photography in the News
Prominent examples of faked press photographs abound. What most don't realize is how many times over the years we have been tricked. Shown here is an original press photograph dated 1921 in which a nascent photograph editor decided the "fat man" in the world's largest swivel chair was too small. An insert of the man enlarged was pasted into the chair before publication. Was the desired effect to make the chair smaller? The man fatter? Either way, just one out of millions of examples of press deceit. Note the chair was cropped with paint as well. This most insignificant example is but one of many. Exactly how many were NOT insignificant is hard to say.
Did you know the famous Kent State photograph once had a pole behind the head of the grieving woman kneeling over the murdered body of a protester?
Original Press photograph with enlarged fat man overlay. Collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb.
Bloom Photography Chicago Nude Letter Opener Burlesque Sales Incentive
Bloom Photography studio was active in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s. They took photographs of celebrities and burlesque performers. This letter opener was likely given to customers to stimulate business.
You may also enjoy the site TRUE BURLESQUE
No date Collection Jim Linderman
Astounding Prison Polaroid Collection arouses Considerable Controversy
Fashion Makeovers from the Past
In 1909, Conde Nast purchased Vogue. Some believe that was the origin of modern-day fashion photography. Conde Nast, in case you do not know, is the name of an individual, not a corporation, though it could be one now. Conde Montrose Nast was a native New Yorker born in 1873. He started his magazine work at Collier's, where he remade the struggling weekly into a profitable machine. Nast left and subsequently made Vogue the premier fashion magazine in the world, along the way also developing Vanity Fair, House & Garden and Glamour.
Others claim the origin of modern day fashion photography to the pictures Edward Steichen took of of couturier Paul Poiret's gowns in 1911 which were published in Art et Decoration.
These photographs, while as far from the work of Steichen, Horst P. Horst, Irving Penn, Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Richard Avedon as they can be, none the less illustrate in 1928 "fashion" a staple of today's magazines for women...the makeover. Maybe not glamour, and maybe not even possible to determine which was "before" and which was "after" they are none the less primitive and early examples of what has become a billion dollar plus-sized industry.
Group of Early original "Makeover" photographic Layouts 1928 Collection Jim Linderman
Ventriloquist Dummy (Vent Figure) circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman
Circa 1940 Handmade Ventriloquist Figure Collection Jim Linderman
SEE ALSO the new book I'M WITH DUMMY: Vent Figures and Blockheads Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection. 78 Pages Softcover or ebook. Nearly 100 original photographs 1900 - 1980 of ventriloquists and vent figures never before published. Creepy? Yes!
FREE PREVIEW OF THE BOOK and ORDERS HERE
Empty Chair Tintype with Nobody In It
Yep! A tintype of an empty chair. Circa 1870 Collection Jim Linderman
(Note: The Painted Backdrop: Behind the Sitter in American Tintype Photography is now available as an Ebook for the iPAD ($5.99) HERE
AVAILABLE eBOOK DOWNLOAD for Apple® iBooks® $5.99. The previously untold story of 19th century painters and their influence on American photography during the tintype era. Never before examined in detail, the book contains over 75 rare, unpublished original tintype photographs from the Jim Linderman collection.
Harlem History and Tan Pin Ups Teena, Vera and Dolores
One of the earliest significant ads I can find in a mass market
periodical offering nude photographs of African-American women.
(Or
even women of color...)
From a 1956 issue of Frolic Magazine. Scarce today, Frolic was printed
on cheap pulp but the covers were bright and vibrant to stand out on the
top shelf of shops. In 1956 the magazine was published every two
months with Luke Bailey as editor. Harlem was about 100 blocks north of
the editorial offices.
The photo sets offered here were common in the day, but to cater to a
race market was not. Mar-Mays photos MAY be yet another "branch" of the
enormous "Marr" or "Marno" distributor of countless figure study
digests documented as well as can be in the book
PROTO-PORN: The Art Figure Study Scam of the 1950s.
PROTO-PORN: The Art Figure Study Scam of the 1950s.
The ad here ran four years after African-American photographer Cass Carr
was arrested for organizing nude camera shots which used ethnic
models...and Bettie Page. Carr was a pioneer of sorts and lived in
Harlem. His studio was shut down by police as reported in Jet Magazine
in 1952. It is likely the photographs above came from informal (or even
illegal) amateur camera club models such as those used by Carr.
Ads from Frolic Magazine 1956 Text by Jim Linderman
What is New at Dull Tool Dim Bulb 2012 Update Jim Linderman
A few recent developments from the Dull Tool Dim Bulb empire!
MUCH pleased to have had no less than David Sedaris recommend the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Blog to his readers. As one who has gone from sitting in Barnes and Noble watching David read to becoming a writer (of sorts) himself, this is a great honor.
Skilled writer and artist Emma Higgins has written a lovely profile titled "Jim Linderman Perpetually Ahead of the Collecting Curve" HERE on the Grand Rapids website H.A.C.K. Grand Rapids, as you may or may not know, is a booming city in the culture department, with their annual Art Prize awarding $$$ and attracting many artist participants and visitors annually. HACK is a wonderful guide to the West Michigan Art Scene and much more.
Two new books, I'm With Dummy: Vent Figures and Blockheads: Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection and PROTO-PORN: The Art Figure Study Scam of the 1950s are now available. Each is available in paperback OR Ebook download for the iPad. They lanquish on the virtual shelves of Blurb.com. ALL the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books are now available as $5.99 downloads. Save a tree and buy a virtual book.
Vintage Sleaze the blog now has an astounding 36,000 followers on Facebook and the network of blogs under the Dull Tool Dim Bulb umbrella is approaching 2.25 million page clicks. If clicks were coins and followers were finance I would be rich...but I prefer happy.
In the not to announce category The World Erotic Art Museum in Miami may be doing a show based on the Vintage Sleaze series and Book Secret History of the Black Pin Up: Women of Color from Pinup to Porn which would be an honor. More as, and if, this develops. I think it will...and if so, linkage will result.
Design Weekly wrote a nice profile and recommendation to Vintage Sleaze, thank you very much.
Music fans can now follow Bob Dylan Record an Album of Songs by Charlie Patton on Facebook. The site grows out of a series of infrequent essays on Dylan...who, with a new album out any day now, has once again failed to do what I wish he would. He will.
I also presume all have seen the recent Jim Linderman New York Times Profile? The article uses a photograph by Michigan-based photographer Adam Bird which I much appreciate. Mr. Bird is a young photographer with considerable style and skill. The Times also quoted me in a recent article on the rebirth of pinup style.
I have discovered an original stag film of Texas Legend Candy Barr dancing. This is not the common film on Youtube, but a film shot on the same set or stage around the same time. I'm not quite sure what do do with the film, but It has been transfered to Digital CD and I'm pondering selling copies or using it as a gift to friends. The only problem is that once the Candy is out of the bag, it will be bootlegged wider than Justin Bieber's next recording. Any ideas?
The Tawdry Origins of Glamour Photography Proto Porn the Book
The book PROTO-PORN : THE ART FIGURE STUDY SCAM OF THE 1950s is available as a $5.99 ebook download for iPad or Paperback HERE
Mrs. Labelle and her Giant Papier Mache Heads Stephen Milanowski Photographer
COPYRIGHT STEPHEN MILANOWSKI
COPYRIGHT STEPHEN MILANOWSKI
While the site here may seem to be about photos, art and antiques, It is actually about stories. I'd like to consider myself a visual artist of sorts, one who uses things to tell stories.
There may be no better combination of "thing and story" than this one, and it comes to me courtesy master photographer Stephen Milanowski, who fortunately got in touch after I posted a big head. I found MY big head in the rafters of an antique store in Spring Lake, Michigan, where it cried out to me for several years before I took him down, talked THEM down (in price) and took him home. I posted the big baby HERE.
Imagine my surprise when I received a splendid present in the mail. A substantial and beautiful catalog from the Museum of Modern Art, their 2012 Appointment Calendar. Mr. Milanowski has a photo in the book, one which is in the MOMA permanent collection.
Nice as the book is, the card enclosed is what surprised me! Same scale, same surface, same curious holes in the head...My big baby had a FATHER and he had his portrait taken by an artist.
Mr. Milanowski (who has a splendid website HERE with some serious examples of his work over the years) later took the time to tell me the story. If you deal with the kind of material I love, the story is frequently as important as the object..and this is a good one.
I'll let Stephen tell it in his own words.
"How the Hell indeed. Some time ago, I believe on a FB posting of yours...I happened to notice, purely by chance, a snapshot of you in a den-like room, presumably in your home--and this snapshot showed you in that room with some of your collection...and I suddenly notice partly seen, in the corner of your room...Mrs. Labelle's Papier Mache Head. The Head I Photographed. And, my question was...How the Hell did Jim get his hands on Mrs. Labelle's Head?"
"The short version: before my wife and I & children moved to Madison, we lived in East Grand Rapids (my home town) for many years. On our street in EGR there lived a goofy old lady who, when I was introduced to her--I realized that she was the girls gym teacher and drama teacher at my High School--Catholic Central. I was introduced to her on her front porch...and I could tell that her house was worth being nosy about...I could see rampant pink everywhere in the interior--just by looking through the porch windows. When I then told her that I was an alum of the HS where she long taught (though then she was long retired)--she immediately invited me in--and I could tell this house was going to be a photographer's paradise. Mrs. Labelle gave me a tour...even into her basement...and it was there that she kept at least these 3 great and ancient papier mache Mardi Gras- style heads that she had long ago made for some drama class at Catholic Central. I flipped when I saw them and immediately asked if I could borrow them for photography; she said yes...and there you are."
"Every year in our neighborhood she would put the heads out on her porch for Halloween night. I should have asked her right then and there if she would sell them to me...but I could tell that she was quite attached to them."
"What I assume happened next is this--we later moved to Madison, she eventually died...and someone either got them in an estate sale...or they ended up in an antique store. And somewhere along the line...the head presented itself to you. Fill me in on the rest of the story."
"By the way--the promo card I sent you is also a Head by Mrs. Labelle."
SM
Stephen Milanowski also has work in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, The High Museum of Art and the Polaroid Collection. His Facebook page is HERE
The Museum of Modern Art Store (which is the finest shop for gifts in Manhattan) is HERE
Mrs. Labelle's Big Head Collection Jim Linderman
Folk Art Painted Tintype Ferrotype Hand-Painted Means of Production and the Consumer
A circa 1880 hand-painted tintype. It is remarkable to consider the photographic process which resulted in an actual unique physical object one could hold, paint by hand and frame has gone from black and white to gone in two or three lifetimes. I haven't quite figured it out yet, but the warmth of an image may have gone with the film.
As far as the public goes, each step forward in the photographic process helped the producer become more effective (and profit more) while leaving the consumer holding less of a product in his hand. While it is an art, and it is progress... it is easy to view photography from a simple supply/demand capitalistic perspective. Dags, so beautiful and shimmering, an amazing thing folks will still circle to see at a show, turned to cruddy metal tintypes which were churned out like pizza at the shore in one lifetime.
It wasn't long before paper came and paper went. Instant photos followed and dropped the quality even further. Now the darkroom is empty and the bits and bytes which tore the guts out of reproduced music have done the same to pictures.
More and more recording artists are releasing their product once again on vinyl. As I understand it, digital music provides only a very small percentage of the aural quality not only possible, but once common. Once even standard. The consumer loses but pays more for it than ever before.
What is yet to be fully understood is what we have lost in pictures. Is the photo above particularly beautiful or desirable? Nope, not at all. But you could hold it in your hands.
"Full Plate" tintype (ferrotype) painted by hand circa 1880. Collection Jim Linderman
Dull Tool Dim Bulb Book Catalog HERE
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An Unfortunate Collage Death as a Way of Life Part Two Funeral Post-Mortem Photography
An unfortunate memorial photograph, a "constructed" post-mortem if you will, with a portrait of the deceased later collaged onto an original photograph taken of her service.
Wreaths were a sacrifice to the dead and the tradition persists...but they were certainly for the living more than the departed. They were, and are, elaborate tributes the lost soul cannot see. The young woman remembered here wouldn't have seen the taxidermy dove placed among the wreaths either.
It was not uncommon for a photograph of the dead to be positioned among the wreaths for a photo, nor is it unusual to see a photo of the dead actually placed into a cased frame with a left-over arrangement from the funeral. They were allowed to dry, hang, and eventually end up in an antique mall 100 years later. However, this is the first photograph I have seen later added to a memorial photo. Not that I have looked.
Every type of photographic technique has been used to photograph the dead. A more traditional post-mortem tintype is shown here. The Stereoview is from the New York Public Library collection.
Original Floral Wreath Funeral Photograph with additional Portrait Affixed. Circa 1880? Collection Jim Linderman
DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS AND EBOOK ORDERS HERE
Blurb features Arcane Americana by Jim Linderman Best Book of the Week
Much pleased to have been selected as Blurb "Book of the Week" at the Blurb Blog Blurberati HERE
"A card player faces off against five versions of himself. A young boy poses with a snake around his neck. A woman in devil horns takes the stage. Welcome to the world of Jim Linderman, a collector who specializes in American folk art and ephemera. His new Blurb book, Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana, shows off such an astounding array of characters and scenes that it’s hard to write this Book of the Week post and not sound like a carnival barker.
Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana is Linderman’s twelfth book with Blurb. Previous books cover, among other things, pin-up girls, painted backdrops, and religious photos and ephemera. Linderman’s books are not for the feint of heart (or those lacking a sense of humor or adventure). But if you’re the kind of person who’s fascinated by carnival sideshows, or spends hours pouring through boxes of old photos in antique stores, you’ll find a kindred spirit in Linderman.
You can get Linderman’s books in either printed form or as ebooks, the latter priced at $5.99 – making a long strange trip through the delights of folk Americana extremely affordable. You can check out 30 pages of Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana below (but be advised: Besides card sharps and snakes, you might see a bit of old-time nudity too). Reality TV has nothing on the car wrecks (both literal and figurative) in Linderman’s book."
Thank you!
Well Rendered Drawing from the Photograph CDV Art History
Practice makes perfect.
Anonymous primitive drawing based on a CDV Photograph 1884. Photograph Curtiss & Smith, Syracuse New York with Pencil sketchbook. Collection Jim Linderman
Little Hoofers by Frank Wendt Cabinet Cards Collection Jim Linderman
Photographer Frank Wendt is best known for his sideshow photographs, but he took more than his share of little women.
Cabinet Card Photographs by Frank Wendt, circa 1890 collection Jim Linderman
E-BOOK DOWNLOADS AND BOOKS FROM DULL TOOL DIM BULB HERE
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