Portraits of Hollywood Actresses by Albert Witzel (1920s)

Posted by Embla on August 4, 2019

Witzel Studios was founded in Los Angeles by photographer Albert Walter Witzel (1879–1929) in 1909 and within a few years had become one of the city’s foremost portrait studios.

The rise of the business paralleled the emergence of the film industry following its relocation from the east coast, and Witzel was soon in demand from Hollywood studios seeking to create interest in movies by circulating promo shots of their stars. Distinguished by moody lighting and dramatic poses and settings, Witzel’s photos soon set the tone for Hollywood studio photography and from the mid-1910s they featured frequently in fan magazines like Photoplay, becoming an important promotional and publicity tool.

Witzel occasionally worked on assignment for the big picture studios, photographing many silent film luminaries including Theda Bara and Charlie Chaplin (source).

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Portrait of American actress Clara Bow by American photographer Albert Witzel (1879-1929) via

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Portrait of American actress & showgirl Blanche Mehaffey Witzel, 1920s by Albert Witzel (1879-1929) via

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Portrait of Bebe Daniels by photographer Albert Witzel (1879-1929), 1920 via

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Portrait of American actress Natalie Kingston by Albert Witzel (1879-1929) via

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Portrait of American actress Melva Cornell by Albert Witzel (1879-1929), 1920s via

Portrait of American actress Bessie Love by Albert Witzel (1879-1929), 1920 via

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Portrait of American actress Doris May by Albert Witzel (1879-1929) , 1920 via

1920s Film Starlett Clara Bow by Eugene Robert Richee (1927)

Posted by Embla on August 2, 2019

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Eugene Robert Richee, Clara Bow Fine Art Print, 1927 via

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Eugene Robert Richee, Clara Bow Fine Art Print, 1927 via

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Eugene Robert Richee, Clara Bow Fine Art Print, 1927 via

Clara Bow for Call Her Savage (1932)

Posted by Embla on September 19, 2017

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Clara Bow in “Call Her Savage”, 1932 via

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Clara Bow in “Call Her Savage”, 1932 via

Clara Bow in “Call Her Savage” (1932)

Posted by Embla on April 29, 2017

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Hal Phyfe, Clara Bow in “Call Her Savage” directed by John Francis Dillon, 1932 via

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Hal Phyfe, Clara Bow in “Call Her Savage” directed by John Francis Dillon, 1932 via

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Hal Phyfe, Clara Bow in “Call Her Savage” directed by John Francis Dillon, 1932 via

Clara Bow for Vanity Fair (1928)

Posted by Embla on February 14, 2017

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Edward Steichen, Clara Bow for Vanity Fair, 1928 via

Famous Flappers of the Roaring Twenties

Posted by Embla on December 12, 2015

Flappers were a “new breed” of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms.

Flappers had their origins in the liberal period of the Roaring Twenties, the social, political turbulence and increased transatlantic cultural exchange that followed the end of World War I, as well as the export of American jazz culture to Europe.

Zelda Fitzgerald was an American socialite and novelist, and the wife of American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who dubbed her “the first American Flapper”. She and Scott became the emblem of the Jazz Age, for which they are still celebrated via

Clara Bow epitomized the Roaring Twenties’ flapper. At only 25, she retired exhausted by repeated scandals about her presumed sexual life. Photo: Bow in a shiny strapless dress by Eugene Robert Richee, 1926 via

Coleen Moore was Bow´s “chief rival”. After Bow took the stage Moore gradually lost her momentum. In spring 1924 she made a good, but unsuccessful effort to top Bow in The Perfect Flapper, and soon after she dismissed the whole flapper vogue. Photo: Coleen Moore in “Why Be Good?”, 1929 via

Louise Brooks 1920. She was an American dancer and actress noted as an iconic symbol of the flapper, and for popularizing the bobbed haircut via

Gilda Gray, 1924. She was an American actress and dancer who popularized a dance called the “shimmy” which became fashionable in 1920s films and theater productions via

Tallulah Brockman, 1922. Bankhead was an American actress of the stage and screen, and a reputed libertine britannica.com

Anita Loos was an American screenwriter, playwright and author, best known for her blockbuster comic novel, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes first published in 1925. It was one of several famous novels published that year that chronicled the so-called Jazz Age – including Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Photo: Loos, on page 12 of the April 1922 Photoplay via

Glamorous Clara Bow by Eugene Robert Richee (1920s)

Posted by Embla on July 31, 2015

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