Beautiful Broadway Chorus Girl Lrg Original Edward Thayer Monroe Photograph 1927

Description

ITEM: This is a large format, vintage and original photograph of Broadway chorus girl Sue Elliott. An artistically beautiful portrait, Elliott, posed in the Classical Greek revival style of the era, is nude except for a diaphanous shawl loosely draped across her body. A single long strand of pearls is draped around her neck and Elliott hold the strand in her hand, staring down at, lost in contemplation, as if completely unaware of the camera. This sensual portrait is by Edward Thayer Monroe and was used to publicize Elliott's role in the George White musical "Manhattan Mary" which played from September 26, 1927 until May 12, 1928 at New York City's Apollo Theatre (a now demolished theatre that was located at 223 W. 42nd St. in NYC).
Photograph measures 11" x 14" on a matte double weight paper stock with the photographer's blind stamp in the bottom right corner, and paper caption, notations, and the photographer's ink stamp on verso.
Guaranteed to be 100% vintage and original from Grapefruit Moon Gallery.
More about Edward Thayer Monroe:
Edward Thayer Monroe was born in Jamestown, New York, in 1890, into a family of photographers. His grandfather, Myron C. Monroe, pioneered wet-plate photography, recording Civil War scenes and shooting the first American images of Jenny Lind for P.T. Barnum. E.T. Monroe turned down the opportunity to attend Yale University, choosing a technical education instead. He received extensive practical training at a photographic processing plant in Syracuse and opened a home studio. In October 1914, the Dinturff Company of Syracuse hired him as "artistic portrait photographer" and his prints began circulating among magazine editors in the Northeast.
In 1915, Luther White hired Monroe to become chief portrait photographer for White Studios in New York City. He headed the portrait department from 1915 through 1919. In 1920, he set up as an independent artist, following the lead of A.C. Johnston and Nickolas Muray. From the first, Monroe garnered notice for the clarity and precision of his images, quickly earning a reputation as the most elegant of the straight photographers. He made his first sales of theater portraits to the magazines in 1919. By 1923 Vanity Fair listed him among the 10 most significant portraitists of the day. He worked as contract photographer for The Theatre in the later 1920s. The Depression forced him into bankruptcy. He reorganized, and in 1939 teamed with his former colleague at White Studio, George W. Lucas, to form Lucas-Monroe, one of the important firms (with Vandamm & Valente) concerned with production photography.
With Lucas's death in 1942, Monroe managed the business until 1952, while residing in the Hudson Valley. In 1952, he retired to upstate New York, amused himself as a local studio photographer, then moved to New England. He died in Starksboro, Vermont, in 1974 and was survived by two daughters. David S. Shields/ALS
Specialty:
Monroe's years of uncredited work as a portraitist at the busiest studio in New York City from 1914 to 1919 instilled in him a mastery of natural lighting and photographic printing. Because White Studios' production photographs, shot by George W. Lucas, highlighted the glitzy spectacle of the stage, Monroe, when shooting performers out of character cultivated an almost austere naturalness of pose and setting. He was a neoclassicist in sensibility, avoiding dramatic contrasts in tone in his prints by avoiding spot lighting and heavy dodging of the prints. He used an 8x10 camera with a 12 inch lens. He experimented with textured papers for his prints and his finest work shows exquisite finish.
The typical Monroe portrait shows a sitter at rest, composed and self-possessed, whether sitting or standing. In the mid-1920s he shot nudes of showgirls that have the stillness and poise of Greek statuary. He avoided reclining postures. His portraits for White occasionally employed soft focus. Those appearing under his own name tend to be straight, well-lit, with moderate depth of field.
Biography By: Dr. David S. Shields, McClintock Professor, University of South Carolina,
Photography & The American Stage | The Visual Culture Of American Theater 1865-1965