Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Fri, 02 Jul 1999 01:21:08 -0400 (EDT)
On Wed, 30 Jun 1999 arkins@banet.net wrote:
> Dear Judy:
> (I'm posting this to the list because I can't find your email address;
> pardon the lack of exclusivity!)
On this topic, Joe, I think it's doing the right thing to share -- there
doesn't seem to be anybody who doesn't love (or hate) Mortensen...
> I reviewed my yellowed card index prepared during my Eastman House days
> (evidence of a once-active academic life), and found the citation:
> "Bromoil Transfer: Factors in Inking" June 1936 Camera Craft at pp. 261-66.
> Another article I reviewed circa 1979 was "Bromoil Prerequisites:
> Introduction to the Illustrations." Camera Craft, August 1937 at pp. 359-68.
Wow! Wish my mags were so organized. Except for the bound volume they are,
I fear, somewhat helter skelter -- but now being informed I'll try again.
(What do you do for an encore?)
> I noted in one of your postings that you viewed the Mortensen
> exhibitionette in Chelsea, and enjoyed your comments with respect thereto.
> Here are a few of my thoughts on the show. The Metalchromes were the reason
> to see the show, in my opinion, less for the tableaux depicted than for the
> beguiling chromatic quality of the process (which is a tribute to
> Mortensen's deft hand with it). The process has such an ingratiating,
In which case let me suggest you buy the book that started this whole
business, "William Mortensen, A Revival," good value at $22 from Center
for Creative Photography (520/621-7968 to order). Keith Schreiber (I think
it was ) mentioned the book on the list -- I bought it to review, & the
Thing Just Grew from there. It has as frontispiece an exquisitely
reproduced Metal Chrome, which you can also see p.3 of P-F #3 --
considering that that's in b&w, it looks pretty good (thanks to Desktop
Dep't at the printer, I suspect, for tweaking the scan), but the color
reproduction in the book is truly special.... A number of color repros & a
ton of Mortensenia make the book a good one to own -- although I hasten to
add that for critical evaluation and cultural context, not to mention MORE
naked ladies, you need the P-F article. (Lack of same was what drove me to
it.)
> charming palette -- rather like two stip Technicolor. A number of the
> 5x7 prints of the better known images in that show, however,
> (Shrapnel, for example), were not "originals"; they were cleverly
> marketed copy prints Mortensen made from his original prints and sold
> to aficionados in portfolios. (These "portfolios" were advertised in
> Camera Craft in the late 30s, but I can't tell you how many dealers
> breathlessly push them as "rare Mortensens.") Some of the prints were
> evidently contact proofs of no particular distinction. It's a pity
> they had none of his bromoils, because he really had a sublime hand
You could tell that just by looking? Or you were clued in? I didn't
examine the gallery list very carefully -- did they reveal the origin?
> with that medium. (There was a lovely bromoil transfer of his Torso
> (on the cover of Monsters and Madonnas) from the PSA collection in the
> "After the Photo Secession" show curated by Christian Peterson from
> the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I took a tortured bus ride from
> NYC to Worcester, MA to see it, and was glad I did! There was also an
> exquisite Arthur Kales bromoil transfer in it, which really had the
> quality of a drypoint.
Now you tell us... Just as well, I suppose-- travel in any form, by bus OR
plane, is indeed torture. I never heard of Arthur Kales.... is he a living
person?
> Speaking of bromoil, may we expect a Post-Factory issue devoted to that
> process ere long? I suspect there are a lot of furtive hoppers out in the
> hinterlands who would either contribute or read the product with gusto!
I have been promised an article, but haven't kept after the promiser
because the date keeps receding. Each issue has had so much overflow that
the next is full by the time it's done. (#4 is already allocated, even
without allowing for emergency coverage, like The Gold Crisis.)
There are also a ZILLION Bromoil articles in the old photo mags (including
several by -- is Emil Mayer the name?). As non-Bromoilist I'm not equipped
to tell which are the best, deserving of reprinting, but when the time
comes, I trust advice will be forthcoming.
> I have an intriguing idea for an article for PF: a meditation on
> two autobiographies I read of two once-very-well-known women
> photographers from the 1930's -- Mme. Yevonde and Dorothy Wilding --
> in conjunction with a review of two recently published catalogues of
> their work. They were both pioneers in so many ways (both were
Published by whom? I don't know the names, tho my excuse is I never was
in a darkroom until 1978. They sure have disappeared from the usual
histories, if they were ever in there .... if you could believe such a
thing could happen.
> eminently successful commercial portraitists and salon exhibitors, and
> Yevonde was a prolific early color photographer), but their autobios
> reveal intriguingly different slants on their time colored by their
> class differences (Yevonde was from a wealthy family; Wilding was from
> a lower-middle class milieu).
>
> Is this idea of interest? Must run; I've got to pull an oil matrix off the
> skillet. . .
With no apparent or even ostensible connection to P-F themes, my first
thought is not to bump other material for it. But that's rapid reply, not
definitive. Are you on the History of Photography List? Did they mention
the books there? I imagine they would/should...
Incidentally, there was a recent offering of Monsters and Madonna's on
E-bay, at $280 when I got there (yes, I did, I overcame principle & did
Web), but as the Mortensen book notes in the bibliography section, there
was a later, inferior edition of this book, which prospective M& M buyers
should beware of.
Oh, did I say that P-F #3 has how-to on the Metal Chrome? I understand by
the way that aniline dyes were applied formerly, but more archival
watercolors are now used for the color beyond the gold.
Thanks for info about M's Bromoil articles. I gather you read them in the
long ago, before the index cards yellowed. Do you offhand think they're
something bromoilists at large would cherish, or mostly for
Mortensen-lovers, or is that a non-distinction?
cheers,
Judy
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