Arnold Genthe was one of America’s pioneer photographers. He was born in Berlin, Germany, to a family of scholars. Once he completed his Doctor of Philology, he decided to come to San Francisco and spend some time tutoring. Somewhere along the line he picked up photography as a hobby and proceeded to become of master of the art. One of his first projects was to photograph San Francisco’s Chinatown. The stark images formed a body of work that proved what the camera could accomplish when placed in the service of social awareness.
In the years before the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, Genthe had established a studio and came to found a very personal style of portraiture. When the Earthquake occurred, his studio was destroyed. Instead of despairing, Genthe borrowed a camera and took to the streets to record the confusion and devastation. His photos from that historic day are among his most well-known. Later on he told stories about the people he met in the city that day. Some of the stories involved celebrities he met. He encountered the Great Caruso in front of a downtown hotel. Sarah Bernhardt nearly ran into Genthe while riding in her carriage.
One thing that is striking in a Genthe portrait is that it is unique and special. He was not an imitator, but an innovator. He possessed a great gift for making portraits that revealed something special about the subject– something even the person themselves may not have known. One hears people refer to photo portraits as being “natural”, or the subject being “at ease”, for example, but Genthe took it all a step further. A great portrait photographer must know every photographic technique and technology, but that knowledge alone is not going to produce excellent results. The subject has to be led to find just the right moment when the shutter is snapped. My own viewpoint favors the idea that Arnold Genthe allowed people to feel confident. Perhaps he was one of those rare men whose intellect actually puts people at ease rather than makes them a nervous wreck. He must have had a quality and manner that made people feel complete and confident in their being, and therefore able to actually look like their true selves.
He was known to have had great success photographing women. If you examine the best of these portraits, you will notice that the women look like stunning individuals, whether or not their surface beauty is apparent. They look like people one would like to have as friends. They appear to have an inner radiance even though still holding something in reserve. Surely Genthe was able to “let” them be themselves and then sensed the right moment to complete the picture. Even the partially clad or fully nude subjects seem to have the same individualistic quality. In these photos, there seems to be no trace either of uncomfortable self- consciousness, excessive prudery, or distracting ribaldry.
If you would permit me to digress momentarily, I would like to explain my interest in the way Arnold Genthe treats women’s portraits as opposed to men’ portraits. I believe that he saw the purpose of portraiture for women as that of revealing the heart. It seems that he was trying to depict the mysterious loving heart of his female subjects. You can scour the collection and find many examples of where he succeeded. In the absence of success, all you have is a pretty face, or worse, a haughty selfish face. The men of Genthe’s collection are equally interesting. It could be said that a man is most manly when he is representing some truth or passionately pursuing and defending it. In Arnold’s portraits of men, this becomes clear. There they are in all their individuality, surrounded sometimes by the trappings of whatever they represent. They have a tendency to appear valiant and robust in the best portraits. In the absence of success, they may appear like just another rat in the rat race – conceited and distracted; crafty and untrustworthy. Of course, these qualities transcend the confines of sex identity, since men and women possess both sets of these characteristics within themselves
Genthe moved to New York in 1911 and began the major part of his career. He became one of the nations leading portrait photographers and his subjects were the wealthy, the powerful and the celebrated of his time. He is known to have traveled extensively and kept photo documentaries of his travels. He never lacked the company of women, yet he never married. It is said that a friend once told him how odd it was that he was a Don Juan, a Hermit Monk, a Chinese Sage, and a University Professor – all rolled into one!
Genthe replied, “Of this I am sure – that I have never been bored and I daresay I have had as much out of life as is coming to any man”.
# posted by DreamSpinner @ 5/23/2006 09:09:00 PM
