GEORGE HURRELL JOHN SEED n Sunday, October 20, 1929, the Los Angeles Times ran a special photo spread in its rotogra- O vure section: “Novarro with Impressions.” The Gelatin silver prints subject of the spread was silent flm idol . George Hurrell, a young society portraitist who had once The Invention trained to be a painter, had taken the portfolio of photos using an aging view camera with a used Verito lens. It was of Modern Glamour breathtaking. Heavily retouched and printed on orthochromatic paper that framed their subject in a silvery chiaroscuro glow, the plates were luminous and perfect. One of the most striking images, The New Orpheus, endowed Novar- ro with the poise of a polished marble statue brought to life. Another, which cast Novarro as the operatic character Parsifal—with a horse owned by socialite Florence Barnes serving as his gleaming steed, Lightning—is infused with the enveloping crepuscular light of a Maxfeld Parrish painting. “My God, George!” exclaimed Barnes when she saw the fnished print. “Even the horse looks glamorous.” That Thursday—October 24, 1929, or “Black Thurs- day”—the stock market lost 11 percent of its value at the opening bell in heavy trading. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 had begun. As the Great Depression unfolded, Hur- rell’s photos of mgm’s stable of actors and actresses would heighten and sustain their careers at a time when most Ramon Novarro, Americans felt the bottom dropping out of their world. (The New Orpheus), America’s crisis was the crucible that shaped George Hur- 1929 rell’s opportunity. The light cast by his overhead spotlights, which caressed the features of the era’s most notable stars, presented them as fgures of hope and icons of desire that

, distracted a nation during dark times. RCHIVE A A Bold New Talent STATE

E When Hurrell started work at mgm on January 2, 1930, he

RUST joined one of America’s most infuential and productive T studios, a powerhouse movie empire built on imagination and profts. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Culver City backlot, ARNES B a “city within a city,” was made up of six fenced lots that URRELL

H covered 185 acres. The company had an incomparable ros- ANCHO

P ter of stars, including Buster Keaton, , Norma OF

EORGE Shearer, and ; and a connection to the media G OF empire of William Randolph Hearst, whose Cosmopolitan Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., 1933 Pictures used mgm as an outlet for its movies. COURTESY

1933 STATE

Jean Harlow, ALL © E

CATAMARAN 71 A sampling of mgm’s early flms gives an idea of the related to potions, enchantments, and spells. The magic of inaccessible palazzos and chateaus. Art museums, and images became possible, and this innovation would be company’s ambition, and also of the rapid evolution of of glamour, when it works, has always been to construct printed postcards of works of art, were still in the future. crucial to the invention of modern glamour. If a photog- movie technology. Since the 1924 merger between Metro a parallel world: a spellbinding zone of near-impossibility Even if glamour as we now understand it didn’t exist rapher could manage to capture—and possibly manipulate Pictures and Goldwyn Pictures, the studio had released inhabited by perfect specters. In European art before the in the culture of Baroque Europe, it is hard not to think and retouch—a single glamorous image, it could appear a torrent of silent classics, including Ben-Hur (1925), the modern era, the qualities that we associate with glamour of the Spanish master Diego Velázquez as a “glamorizer” on innumerable printed posters and in countless news- most expensive silent flm ever made; Torrent and The were found in idealized images, including funeral art, re- of sorts. Although Velázquez rarely prettifed his subjects, papers and magazines. One of the reasons that modern Temptress (both 1926), featuring Greta Garbo; and its frst ligious images, and portraits of royalty and nobility. he did depict them with all of the trappings of power. One art began to deviate from the long tradition of illusion- Technicolor picture, The Black Pirate (1926). In response The encaustic (hot wax) portraits found on the wood- of his jobs was to make the inbred and plain princes and ism (and indeed fguration) in painting is that it needed to the hit Warner Brothers’ “talkie” The Jazz Singer (1927), en mummies of the Roman citizens of Coptic Fayum ra- princesses of the Spanish Habsburgs look impressive in to distinguish itself from the naturalistic representation mgm hastily added sound effects to White Shadows in the diate an otherness that resulted from the efforts of their portraits. Velázquez never quite managed to paint King that was the camera’s natural forte (despite the fact that South Seas (1928), including a roaring “Leo the Lion” at anonymous creators to help the dead present their ideal Philip iv as a glamorous fgure, but he painted the bland, many early photographs, such as the Civil War images the flm’s opening. The Broadway Melody (1929), mgm’s visages to the future. One such third-century portrait sub- dull-eyed monarch in glistening, richly embroidered fab- of Mathew Brady, were carefully staged). In the opening frst musical, won the year’s Academy Award for Best Pic- ject has a liquid gleam in her eyes and sparkling jewelry rics that provided visual distraction. And yes, distraction decades of the twentieth century, while modern painting ture. In 1930, mgm released another spectacular musical, that denotes her elegance and class. Who knows what she is one of the great tools of glamorizers. abstracted and deformed the image of the human fgure Rogue Song, a full-color picture flled with dialogue, sing- actually looked like? One of the jobs of funeral art is to Catholic devotional and religious paintings from the for an exclusive “art world” audience, photography offered ing, and dancing. idealize, and we can assume that her features have been Baroque era had the liberty of presenting idealized saints mass-produced glamour—increasingly tinged with sexual On his frst day of work, Hurrell entered mgm’s stills de- perfected and even fantasized. Idealization—the depic- with smooth skin and glistening eyes. The frm, clear allure—to a mass audience. The tradition of idealization, partment offces, where he replaced chief portrait photogra- tion of people and things as more perfect than they are—is features of Florentine painter Carlo Dolci’s Madonna in now tied to glamour, was ready to be reinvented. pher —a stylish twenty-seven-year-old the elder cousin of glamorization, and part of the “magic” Glory convey a “glamour” that is enhanced by both subtle who had shot more than 100,000 negatives during her fve of ancient art is its ability to reach outside of reality towards directional lighting and a halo of stars: no distracting fab- years with the studio. Louise’s refned and elegant style had eternity and perfection. rics are necessary. Modern Glamour helped boost the career of femme fatale Greta Garbo; but Renaissance painters served aristocratic clients who Modern glamour began to take shape in the nine- By accepting the job at mgm, George Hurrell had seem- after showed her husband, movie producer had an increasing appetite for portraits—especially paint- teenth century. The expanding European middle class ingly strayed from his original goal of becoming a fne , a suite of photos that George Hurrell had ings that emphasized their piety, power, and hereditary had many reasons to resent the social, economic, and sexu- artist. But he didn’t see it that way. Although he was now made of her, Louise’s contract was not renewed. The bold- connections—and glamorization was sometimes called al privileges that had been reserved for the aristocracy, and a highly paid ($150 per week) commercial photographer, ness and perfectionism—the glamour—of Hurrell’s photos for or even demanded. The Marchioness of Mantua, Isa- as a result, French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist he had an irksomely independent attitude about the studio, instantly rendered Louise’s work passé. bella d’Este, who had the vanity of a movie star, was so portraits are often characterized by a certain bourgeois the stars, and his new role: “Hell, this is only temporary,” In the two and a half years he spent at mgm before displeased by Titian’s frst portrait of her that she asked for modesty. For example, in Manet’s portrait of Jeanne De- he later recalled thinking. “I’m just doing this to make walking out to open his own studio in July of 1932, and in a second version that would show how she’d looked forty marsy—recently acquired by the Getty Museum for more a couple of bucks. Then I’m going back to my easel and the subsequent years he spent photographing stars in that years earlier. The resulting portrait lacks psychological in- than $65 million—we encounter a beauty whose allure paint.” Ultimately, the sense of artistic independence that studio, Hurrell would make signifcant contributions to sight, but does broadcast a certain doll-like hauteur. There and sensuality are simultaneously shielded and enhanced he brought to the highly regulated role of movie studio the notion of modern glamour. Although he was working is “glamour” in her aristocratic reserve. by her association with nature and delicate fabrics. photographer is what made his work stand out. Hurrell with a modern medium in the early twentieth century, Renaissance artists felt most free to invent, fantasize, Around the time that Manet was posing Jeanne De- never saw himself as only a studio functionary: he was an Hurrell’s work is informed by and draws its power from and eternalize their subjects in religious and mythological marsy with her parasol, the upstart medium of photogra- artist just like the stars were; and his photos were, in his his deep understanding of the tradition of idealized por- contexts. Innumerable ivory-skinned virgins and alluring phy was challenging and expanding the possibilities of por- mind, as much works of art as any painting. traiture in Western art. Venuses resulted, and patrons who paid substantial fees traiture. Although slow exposures necessitated stiff poses, One thing that photography and painting have in could be depicted peering in from side panels of Annun- photography democratized portraiture: almost everyone common is that they capture a moment. Hurrell’s job was ciations. These wealthy art lovers had the painted equiva- could afford a tintype. It is hard to grasp now, but when to create single images that would lure crowds of Ameri- The Origins of Glamour lent of front row seats that allowed them to peer into a photographic portraiture began to become commonplace, cans into movie theaters and palaces where the big screen Sir Walter Scott once wrote in his notes that glamour is universe of angels and other eternal fgures. Proximity to people must have felt a new sense of social position and would food with images—thirty-two each second—and “the magic power of imposing on the eyesight of the spec- perfection was an exclusive and expensive privilege of the possibility when they frst glimpsed themselves on the fn- after the mid-1920s, there was dialogue, too. Advertising tators, so that the appearance of an object shall be totally few. But the images they paid for remained cloistered in ished plate. movies with photographic images required Hurrell to be different from the reality.” Although its precise origin is chapels—where dogged pilgrims might catch a glimpse When glass negatives and photographic papers ap- visually succinct, and to devise images endowed with tre- unclear, the word glamour has its roots in the occult: it of them and light a candle—and on the paneled walls peared, the multiplication of single realistic photographic mendous immediacy. If he could capture moments of al-

72 John Seed CATAMARAN 73 Victrola to loosen things up during most of his sessions. sessions. his of most during up things loosen to Victrola 1940 The difference was that Hurrell was in charge of the fan the of charge in was Hurrell that was difference The Ameri everyday to offered photos his that fantasy The (additional exposure) (reducing and dodging exposure) to 74 lm concentrated the drama of his early his of drama Black-and-whiteconcentratedthe lm f Hurrell knew what to emphasize and what to sheathe in in sheathe to what and emphasize to what knew Hurrell in a certain attitude that did that not attitude in looka certain right in my camera,” he once recalled, “I would say, for instance, ‘Change the the ‘Change say,instance, wouldfor “I recalled, oncehe magazine once dubbed Hurrell “Rembrandt with a cam a with “RembrandtHurrell dubbed once magazine make Greta Garbo smile, and he played records on his his on records played he and smile, Garbo Greta make techniciansmade for to copy darkroom and disseminate. multiply them nitely.f in ’s smoldering glances era.” There is a point to the hyperbole: Hurrell’s careful careful Hurrell’shyperbole: the to point a is Thereera.” early lure and perfect them in his darkroom, the printing presses cans—proximity to icons—was the reality that he lived. he that reality the icons—was to cans—proximity base makeup in in makeup base darken or lighten selective areas of the master prints he prints master the of areas selective lighten or darken glamour.“Hurrell” In full its photo resonatethe didwith ners dio, Hurrell improvised, cajoled, and coaxed to bring his his bring to cajoled,coaxed and improvised, Hurrelldio, about light. Using a boom light as a single in spotlight the addition to retouching, Hurrell used selective burning burning selective used Hurrell retouching, to addition associates. When he photographed without by and himself by both done well, as retouching artistic painter, a conjure.Like to able was he that shadow and painterly.indeed was light of manipulation sensitive and and that enhanced mystery their glamour. early the of color his Kodachrome portraits although and and Clark Gable’s were gaze masculine trans self-assured photos, and emphasized the subtle of effects light, texture, position of your left hand,’ and she wouldmove deftly her freckle. Only after after Only freckle. sold tickets. that their allureahot commodity was tising: formed by Hurrell’s alchemy into a hybrid of art and adver like magazines movie out cranked that tasies, tasies, which were carefully staged. “If I posed Jean Harlow six hours retouching the original negative with graphite with negative original the retouching hours six shadow. subjects’ allure to the surface. He once used a pratfall to pratfall a used once He surface. the to subjects’allure

Working with stars on Working stars with , the commercial lens of his camera captured every every captured camera his of lens commercial the ,

Hurrell was like a painter in his reliance on careful careful on reliance his in painter a like was Hurrell Hurrell began his career in an era of blackof era an white,and in career his Hurrellbegan s are brash and confdent, the “Hurrell is look” John Seed John 1930 s, s, he gave his subjects the paradoxical tangibility 1931 mgm lm f the promote to retouch artist James Sharp spent Sharp James retouch artist mgm sets and in his sets private stu Photoplay Motion Picture Laughing Sin Laughing would

really really ------

War To appreciate Hurrell’s genius—and the culture of his his of culture the genius—and Hurrell’s appreciateTo (Hurrell and Warhol, who met and were photographed were and met whoWarhol, and (Hurrell and for artists and art Jacinto College in Southern California. He has written about Seed John yearned yearned for. Modern glamour began in Hollywood during it was born and nurtured its growth. its and nurtured born it was ing. Movies brought a mass audience into close contact close into audience mass a brought Movies ing. gures who, when they appeared onscreen, were litwereonscreen, appeared they whenwho, gures f with movie magazines, and he later collected Hurrell photos. Hurrell collected later he and magazines, movie might not have been seen as art when they were produced, erally larger than life. Their appeal was carefully renedf carefully was appeal Their life. than larger erally remember that the movies were still young, and its of stars Hurrell’sby cast overheadlight ontoHarlow’s lamps Jean photographed, he stars the recognize can’t that eration genyounger a by whenviewedimpact their of some lose gures to look up to; and before Worldbefore and to;up look to gures f saintly and cratic of icons.) but their immediacy and glamour fin uenced the works of devoid of hereditary nobility, its citizens still crave aristo crave still citizens nobility,its hereditary of devoid as quaint to a society overstimulated by the overload of overload the by overstimulated society a to quaint as across come may attitudes and poses subjects’ their and reading up grown Warhol.had Warhol Andy like artists and distributed in Hurrell’s photography. His photographs portraiture. Although America was born as a democracy,a as born was America Although portraiture. ngers a fraction of an inch without altering altering inchwithout an of fraction a ngers f heror palm glamour glamour as wellof the as time—wasany artist there when thetic roots can be found in the traditions of European of traditions the in found be can roots thetic the Depression, and Hurrell—who understood the art of art the Hurrell—who andunderstood Depression, the fered America the visions of idealization and allure itthat to have you photos, Hurrell’s at look you When theater. where charisma America an imagine times—youto have power the understood Catholicswho together,wereboth the wholethe effect.” sold more tickets than action and where the gleaming gleaming the where and action than tickets more sold media. today’s of all virtually in offered violence and sex ll a ll f to suggestion sexual enough created features silken star portraits were concocted as advertising, but their aes theirbut advertising, as wereconcocted portraits star The glamorous effects and attitudes of Hurrell’s and attitudes early glamorous effects The The photographic mirages that Hurrell created may may created Hurrell that mirages photographic The Hyperallergic ii , its movie stars gradually came to satisfy that yearn that , gradually came its movieto satisfy stars is a professor of art and art history at Mt. San Mt. at history art and art of professor a is . Harvard Magazine, Art Ltd Art Magazine, Harvard . , Arts of Asia, of Arts , ------

ALL COURTESY OF PANCHO BARNES TRUST ESTATE ARCHIVE, © ESTATE OF GEORGE HURRELL

Self-portrait

Joan Crawford, 1932 Crawford, Joan Jimmy Durante, 1931 Durante, Jimmy