Fashion Illustrations For Vogue by Helen Dryden in the Early 20th Century

Born 1882 in Baltimore, American artist Helen Dryden spent a year trying to interest fashion magazines in her drawings after moving to New York in 1909. None, however, showed any interest in her work and many were harsh with criticism. She was particularly disappointed in her rejection by Vogue.

Fashion illustrations for Vogue by Helen Dryden in the early 20th century

Less than a year later, however, Condé Nast Publications assumed management of Vogue and set out to make changes. Upon seeing Dryden’s drawings, they directed the fashion editor to contact her immediately. The result was a Vogue contract that led to a 13-year collaboration (1909–1922) during which she produced many fashion illustrations and magazine covers.

Her “essentially romantic style produced some of the most appealing, yet fantastical images on Vogue covers, frequently depicting imagined rather than realistic representations of dress.” She also illustrated other Condé Nast titles, including Vanity Fair and House and Garden.

Dryden was reportedly described by The New York Times as being the highest-paid woman artist in the United States, though she lived in comparative poverty in later years. She died in 1972 in New York, aged 89.

Here below is a set of amazing photos that show fashion illustrations for Vogue by Helen Dryden in the early 20th century.

Cover of Vogue, November 1, 1911

Vogue, June 15, 1911

Cover of Vogue, July 1912

Cover of Vogue, February 1, 1913

Cover of Vogue, October 1913

See more»

Vintage Photographs of People Riding Electric Scooters From the Early 20th Century

The electric scooter seems like a new fashionable means of transport, we can find it around the streets. People ride the electric scooter to work, school, having fun. But it is quite unknown that the electric scooters first appeared in the last century. A hundred years ago, people rode electric scooters for a ride, and some others use it to commit crimes.

Scooters were popular during World War I, part of the reason is their very low fuel consumption, which provided transportation for many people who could not afford a car or motorcycle.

Some businesses also experimented with this novel vehicle. For example, the New York Postal Service uses it to deliver mail. In 1916, four special delivery postmen at the U.S. Postal Service were experimenting with their new tool, they called it “Autoped.”

The scooter was once popular, but soon after the end of World War I, electric scooters disappeared. Its usefulness has been challenged, such as weighing more than 100 pounds itself and being difficult to carry. On the other hand, as is the case now, some sections of the road are not suitable for scooters, and some sections of the road are prohibited scooters. Even in 1921, Arthur Hugo Cecil Gibson, an American inventor of scooters, abandoned manufacturing and improving the two-wheeler, saying they were outdated.

See more»

Beautiful Women in Paintings by Jean-Gabriel Domergue in the Early 20th Century

Born 1889 in Bordeaux, French painter Jean-Gabriel Domergue studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. In 1911, he was a winner of the Prix de Rome.

Women in paintings by Jean-Gabriel Domergue in the early 20th century

From the 1920s onward, Domergue concentrated on portraits, and claimed to be “the inventor of the pin-up”. He also designed clothes for the couturier Paul Poiret.

From 1955 until 1962, Domergue was the curator of the Musée Jacquemart-André, organising exhibitions of the works of Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Goya and others.

Domergue specialized in portraits of Parisian women. He was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur. He died in 1962 on a Paris sidewalk. These beautiful photos captured portraits of women in paintings by Jean-Gabriel Domergue in the early 20th century.

Woman in Black, Venice, 1919

Fernande Cabanel, 1920

Les Clientes des Galeries Lafayette, 1920

Portrait de femme au tutu, 1920

Château de Madrid, 1921

See more»

Georgia O’Keeffe Photographed by Rufus Holsinger, 1915

Portraits of Georgia O’Keeffe during her time at the University of Virginia, where she was a teaching assistant. These portraits were taken on July 19, 1915 by photographer Rufus W. Holsinger.

Rufus W. Holsinger, the oldest of Thomas Snyder and Elizabeth Snyder Holsinger’s four sons, was born on February 22, 1865. Although the exact location of his birthplace is unknown, it is believed the Mr. Holsinger moved from Pennsylvania to Charlottesville, Virginia, in the late 1880s to open a photography business. Specializing in wet-plate collodion photography, he opened his ‘University Studio’ at 719-721 West Main Street. He preferred the wet-plate method because he believed they produced the sharpest large (14 x 17) image negatives. He mastered the tedious process and prints would be made on the finest albumen paper, purchased from E. & H. T. Anthony & Company.

In 1906, Holsinger was the sole agent for the famous Eastman Kodaks. His gallery carried a full line of photographic supplies, picture frames, mouldings, etc. In 1912 he was commissioned to create an historical record of the interior and grounds of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate. A fire in 1912 destroyed many of his early prints but he stayed in business.

1915 turned out to be a pivotal year for Mr. Holsinger. While working as an instructor at the University of Virghina, he made a portrait of fledgling painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Sadly, that same year, during a postsurgery recuperation, Mr. Holsinger suffered lightheadedness, which resulted in a fall from his studio’s second-story window. Although his fall was broken by a telephone line, he fractured his skull, and was forced into retirement. Thereafter, his Main Street gallery would be operated by his son Ralph W. Holsinger. Rufus W. Holsinger died on October 9, 1931, and his son continued operating the studio at its 908 West Main Street location until his retirement in 1969.

20 Wonderful Vintage Photo Postcards in Heart Shape From the Early 20th Century

In 1903 Kodak introduced the No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak. The camera, designed for postcard-size film, allowed the general public to take photographs and have them printed on postcard backs, usually in the same dimensions as standard vintage postcards. Many other cameras were used, some of which used glass photographic plates that produced images that had to be cropped in order to fit the postcard format.

In 1907, Kodak introduced a service called “real photo postcards,” which enabled customers to make a postcard from any picture they took. While Kodak was the major promoter of photo postcard production, the company used the term “real photo” less frequently than photographers and others in the marketplace from 1903 to ca. 1930.

Old House Journal states that “beginning in 1902 Kodak offered a preprinted card back that allowed postcards to be made directly from negatives.” This technology allowed photographers to travel from town to town and document life in the places they visited. Old House Journal continues: “Local entrepreneurs hired them to record area events and the homes of prominent citizens. These postcards documented important buildings and sites, as well as parades, fires, and floods. Realtors used them to sell new housing by writing descriptions and prices on the back. Real photo postcards became expressions of pride in home and community, and were also sold as souvenirs in local drug stores and stationery shops.”

Real photo postcards may or may not have a white border, or a divided back, or other features of postcards, depending on the paper the photographer used. Here’s a collection of 20 wonderful antique photo postcards that masked/cropped with heart shape.

See more»

Amazing Posters Designed by Ramon Casas in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Ramon Casas (1866 – 1932) was a Spanish artist. Living through a turbulent time in the history of his native Barcelona, he was known as a portraitist, sketching and painting the intellectual, economic, and political elite of Barcelona, Paris, Madrid, and beyond.

Casas was also known for his paintings of crowd scenes ranging from the audience at a bullfight to the assembly for an execution to rioters in the Barcelona streets (El garrot). Also a graphic designer, his posters and postcards helped to define the Catalan art movement known as modernisme.

Here below is a set of amazing photos that shows posters designed by Ramon Casas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Ramón Casas y Pere Romeu en un tándem, 1897

Sombras, Quatre Gats, Barcelona, 1897

"Anise for a monkey". Badalona, ​​Spain, 1898

Advertising poster for Codorniu Champagne, Manuel Raventós vineyards, circa 1898

Anís del Mono, 1898

See more»

Vintage Photographs of People Posing by the Iconic Balanced Rock in the Garden of the Gods

One of the most popular places to take a picture in Colorado Springs was actually a hot spot for tourists a hundred years ago. And according to a local historian, the stress and controversy surrounding it made the first owner of the natural wonder “wildly unhappy.”

A man named Paul Goerke originally owned Balanced Rock, and the area surrounding it. For decades, it was privately owned land, separate from Garden of the Gods park, where Goerke would charge tourists for taking a photo. He operated a photo studio right next to Balanced Rock, and he charged tourists to have their photograph taken on a burro in front of Balanced Rock.

Big problems arose when personal cameras became more popular and affordable; that’s when Goerke built a fence around Balanced Rock, making him “wildly unpopular” and “wildly unhappy.” Because he wanted to solely make money off of Balanced Rock. And angry locals tore down the fence and he rebuilt the fence. And they tore it back down.

Goerke’s tourist trap was impeding traffic. Lawsuits dragged on for decades before he finally gave in to the city of Colorado Springs. Finally, in the 1930s, they purchased Paul Goerke’s land, they opened it up to the public and they made that part of Garden of the Gods park.

See more»

Charlie Chaplin in Red Letter Photocards for His Essanay Films in 1915

These Red Letter photocards were for the British release of his Essanay films in 1915. Many times they included the name Charlie into the title, for instance this is from The Champion but in it’s British release Champion Charlie, Work was called Charlie at Work.

In November 1914, Charles Chaplin left Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company and signed on at the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, where he made 14 films plus a cameo appearance in  Broncho Billy Anderson’s film His Regeneration. After the expiration of his one-year contract with Keystone, Chaplin was lured to Essanay, founded in 1907, for the unprecedented salary of $1,250 per week, with a bonus of $10,000 for merely signing with the company and his own production unit. The 14 short films he made for Essanay were distinctly marked and designated upon release as the “Essanay-Chaplin Brand.” If the early slapstick of the Keystone comedies represents Chaplin’s cinematic infancy, the films he made for Essanay are his adolescence. The Essanays find Chaplin in transition, taking greater time and care with each film, experimenting with new ideas, and adding flesh to the Tramp character that would become his legacy. Chaplin’s Essanay comedies reveal an artist experimenting with his palette and finding his craft.

While no single Chaplin film for Essanay displays the aggregate transformation to the more complex, subtle filmmaking that characterizes his later work, these comedies contain a collection of wonderful, revelatory moments, foreshadowing the pathos (The Tramp), comedic transposition (A Night Out), fantasy (A Night Out), gag humor (The Champion), and irony (Police), of the mature Chaplin films to come. The most celebrated of the Essanay comedies, The Tramp is regarded as the first classic Chaplin film. It is noteworthy because of Chaplin’s use of pathos in situations designed to evoke pity or compassion toward the characters, particularly the Tramp. An innovation in comedic filmmaking, The Tramp dares to have a sad ending. Pathos also appears in The Bank, in which Charlie’s heart is broken when the object of his affection throws away the flowers he has given her and tears up the accompanying love note.

The evolution of the Tramp was undoubtedly fueled by Chaplin’s efforts to seize greater creative control over his films. Unlike the Keystone comedies, which have a simple plot and place primacy on farce humor, Chaplin’s Essanay comedies display more sophisticated plots and involve more textured characters. The maddening pace of producing nearly one new Keystone comedy each week was reflected in the rapid pace and formulaic storylines in the films. However, the pace of Essanay was somewhat slower, allowing Chaplin to take more time and care in creating his films, and more room to experiment. The tempered pace shows in the style of the films, which contain more subtle pantomime and character development. Although the first seven films Chaplin made for Essanay were released over three months, Chaplin slowed the pace of production to one two-reel film per month after that.

Chaplin had disagreements with Essanay from the beginning. The company’s co-founder, George K. Spoor, had never heard of Chaplin and was reluctant at first to give him his promised $10,000 signing bonus. Chaplin also refused to allow Essanay’s practice of projecting the original negative when screening rough film footage, which saved the studio the expense of making a positive copy, insisting that viewing prints had to be made.

Chaplin disliked the unpredictable weather of Chicago and left after only one year for more money and more creative control elsewhere. His departure caused a rift between founders Spoor and G.M. Anderson, better known as “Broncho Billy” Anderson, cinema’s first cowboy star. Chaplin was the studio’s biggest moneymaker, and Essanay resorted to creating “new” Chaplin comedies from file footage and out-takes. Finally, with Chaplin off the Essanay scene for good, Essanay signed French comedian Max Linder, whose clever pantomime, often compared to Chaplin’s, failed to match Chaplin’s popularity in America. Chaplin remained bitter about this period in his career for the rest of his life.

See more»

Impressive Fashion Illustration by Umberto Brunelleschi in the Early 20th Century

Born 1879 in Montemurlo, Italian artist Umberto Brunelleschi moved to Paris in 1900 where he soon established himself as a printer, book illustrator, set and costume designer.

Fashion illustration by Umberto Brunelleschi in the early 20th century

Brunelleschi worked for Le Rire as a caricaturist (often under the pseudonym’s Aroun-al-Raxid or Aron-al-Rascid) and was a contributor to many of the deluxe French fashion publications including Journal des Dames et Des Modes, La Vie Parisienne, Gazette du Bon Ton and Les Feuillets d’Art. He was also the artistic director of the short lived but significant La Guirlande d’art et de la littérature 1919-1920.

In the 1920s, Brunelleschi diversified into set and costume designs for the Folies Bergère, the Casino de Paris, the Théâtre du Châtelet and theatres in New York City, Germany, and in his native country. In Italy, he worked for Opera Houses such as La Scala in Milan, and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence.

His illustrated books include Voltaire (Candide, 1933), Charles Perrault (Contes du temps jadis, 1912), Musset (La Nuit vénitienne), Goethe, Diderot (Les Bijoux indiscrets, etc.), Les Masques et les personnages de la Comédie italienne, 1914; Phili ou Par delà le bien et le mal, 1921; Le Radjah de Mazulipatam, 1925; Le Malheureux Petit Voyage, 1926; and Les Aventures du roi Pausole, 1930.

Umberto Brunelleschi died 1949 in Paris. These vintage photos show impressive fashion illustration by Umberto Brunelleschi in the 1910s and 1920s.

"Celles qui la préfèrent... La Malaceïne?", circa 1910s

"La fleur et le miroir", Gazette du Bon Ton, 1912

Le Roi Regarde Le Petit Lapin, 1912

"Toilette au goût Vénitien", Costumes Parisiens, Nº 122, 1913

Illustrated London News, Christmas 1913

See more»

30 Portrait Photos of Theda Bara From ‘Cleopatra’ (1917)

Cleopatra is a 1917 American silent historical drama film based on H. Rider Haggard’s 1889 novel Cleopatra, the 1890 play Cleopatre by Émile Moreau and Victorien Sardou, and the play Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare. The film starred Theda Bara in the title role, Fritz Leiber Sr. as Julius Caesar, and Thurston Hall as Mark Antony.

Cleopatra premiered at the Lyric Theatre on October 14, 1917. Around 5 million people were reported to have watched the film within a year of its release. The film is now considered partially lost, as only small parts of the film remain.

These vintage photos captured portraits of Theda Bara during the filming of Cleopatra in 1917.

See more»

20 Stunning Portraits of Fashion Designer Emilie Flöge From the 1900s and 1910s

Emilie Flöge (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was one of Vienna’s most successful fashion stylists and designers who created bold, stunning designs for the newly and increasingly liberated ‘modern’ Viennese woman.

Like her life-long companion Gustav Klimt, Emilie Flöge came from fairly humble origins. Klimt’s glorious portrait of her at the age of 28 conveys something of her strong personality. She was born in Vienna in 1874, one of three daughters of a wood carver who specialized in fashioning the meerschaum pipes which, universally, the male population smoked at this time.

As a business woman, Emilie Flöge was one of Vienna’s most successful fashion stylists and designers. In 1904, together with her sisters Pauline and Helene, she opened the couture house Schwestern Flöge (Flöge Sisters) in Casa Piccola on the Mariahilferstrasse. The couture house, with its interiors designed by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser as a Wiener Werkstätte commission, quickly became a successful enterprise with wealthy clients who were committed to modernity in all its forms.

The success of the Flöge sisters’ business resulted in the entire first floor of the Casa Piccola eventually being used by their flourishing enterprise. While the reception room was in a striking black-and-white design, the walls of the next room were covered in felt. Samples of embroidery and lace were displayed in vitrines situated between the windows. The collapse of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918, and the ensuing years of impoverishment that gripped Vienna, represented a severe economic test for Emilie Flöge and her sisters, but they displayed remarkable business skills and were able to survive into a new era in which the pre-1914 world of aristocracy and Grossbürgertum became a vanished epoch of elegance and leisure.

Despite the horrific inflation of the early 1920s and the depression of the 1930s, Schwestern Flöge was able to remain in business. Although no longer as wealthy as they had once been, many customers remained loyal to an establishment that signified stylishness often raised to the level of art. Only with the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938, was the venerable shop forced to close down. With the loss of their Jewish clientele, Emilie and her sisters could no longer remain in business. The new Nazi rulers of Vienna regarded the shop as a symbol of an undesirable decadent era dominated by cosmopolitan Jews and haughty aristocrats, and were pleased when it expired.

Emilie Flöge’s haute couture shop was shuttered forever in 1938; in many ways, her personal ambitions had died two decades earlier. On January 11, 1918, Gustav Klimt was struck down by a stroke. The first recognizable words that he was able to utter were “Die Emilie soll kommen” (“Emilie must come”). After Klimt’s death from pneumonia on February 6, 1918, Emilie collected her letters to him, burning several laundry baskets full. But she never forgot their love for each other, and after the closure of her business, she retained a small room looking onto a courtyard at the Casa Piccola, turning it into a private and intimate museum in which the furnishings of Klimt's studio were kept. Emilie Flöge never wrote her memoirs, but despite the paucity of sources historians have been able to reconstruct the story of her powerful influence as the muse of one of fin-de-siècle Vienna’s greatest artists. Among the last survivors from an utterly vanished world, she died in Vienna on May 26, 1952.

See more»