Emil Otto Hoppe (1878-1972) was the foremost portrait photographer of his generation, although almost forgotten now, in Edwardian London his was the studio that the great and good flocked to. It is amazing to think that by the 1920's he was simply the most famous photographer in the world, a truly "household name", Jay, B cited by Prodger,P 2011, but until this exhibition I had personally never heard of him.
His work had three distinct phases, he was firstly a very fine society portrait photographer, secondly he was greatly interested in typology and thirdly he became adept at street photography.
Firstly I will deal with his studio portrait work, Hoppe worked very hard to capture not just a likeness of his subject but also what they were really like and I think this is what makes some his studio work his most compelling. Because he photographed his subjects in such a sensitive way it means that we as viewers, in the present day, can still connect with them as people, we can form an opinion about them, even though they must all have died many years ago. I feel that this is one of photographies great strengths, to connect us to the past in a truly emotional sense and reminds me of the work of Susan Hiller (b.1940), that I discussed earlier on my blog, some of whose work is concerned with connecting us to the past.
Hoppe felt that one of the keys to understanding the character of his sitters lay in their hands and although they were often cropped out for publication, Hoppe often included the hands by photographing either full figure or bust to include the hands.( Prodger,P 2011). If we consider his portrait of Jacob Epstein in front of his memorial for Oscar Wilde, 1912, we find that both hands are included, the left hand is clenched in a fist around his chisel, whilst his right almost caresses his mallet and is carefully lit to show the prominent veins on the back. These hands combined with the subjects direct gaze give a sense of tension to the image and a feeling of impatience from the subject, as if with him still in his work clothes we have interrupted him in the midst of carving, we feel as though we are intruding. Hoppe believed that although we control our faces when in the situation of having our portrait, made we forget to control our hands and give our true character away.
Hoppe's portraits are very modern in their approach, gone are the sitters with eyes glued to the lens, quite often they are gazing out of the frame, downcast or their eyes are not visible at all and we see the back of their head. His portrait of Lillian Gish,1921 is one such image, here we have probably one of the most famous faces of the age, which Hoppe decides to ignore and confronts us with a very soft focus profile with Miss Gish almost completely turned away from the camera, he is showing us that there is a real woman behind the famous face.
Hoppes' curious mind began to wonder if there was something you could see in a successful person, if there was a common link between them, whether all dancers had something in their appearance that predestined them to be dancers or writers, or whatever. This Typological Approach ( Badger, B. 2007) was very popular in Europe throughout the 1920's and 1930's and had been pioneered by photographers such as Karl Blossfeldt (1865- 1932) whose Art Forms in Nature (1928) cataloged natural forms against a plain background, which had an abstract quality that crossed the boundary between science and art.
This catologing approach was then applied to human subjects by August Sander (1876-1964) who made thousands of images of German society ' types' , he believed that each level of society could be recognized by visual information and he published his book of types in his Face of Our time ( 1929).
Hoppe produced two books of typological studies Taken from Life (1922) and London Types (1926) what strikes me about the portraits from these books is that, for someone who worked so hard to show the true character of his celebrity customers, they show no real empathy with their subjects. It is almost as if because they of a lower class, they were devoid of depth, which probably tells us a great deal about the time at which the portraits were made and the divides in society. He also at this time produced at this time The Book of Fair Women (1922) which made the daring assertion that beauty could come from anywhere in the world. This was very contentious at the time and the press coverage assured Hoppes' fame, the images themselves are fairly superficial as they are primarily concerned with physical beauty.
As I said earlier hoppe had a third element to his work, that of what we now call street photography, a lot of these are what appear to be staged events, of what I think of as Picture Post type of photographs. But there are some images taken with a hidden camera, as Walker Evans (1903-1975) was doing at the same time on the New York Subway, and may have even pre-dated Evans very famous efforts.
Pictures such as At the counter in a snack bar (1935) show truly unguarded moments in the street life of London, and as such are a valuable document in reconnecting us with the past.
As you can see Hoppe had a very varied career and deserves to be remembered, at his very best he gets under the skin of his subject and shows us their strengths or weaknesses and helps to bring the past alive.
Ref: Prodger,P & Pepper,T.2011, Hoppe Portraits Society, Studio and Street,National Portrait Gallery,London
Badger,G.2007,The Genius of Photography,Quadrille,London.
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