E. J. Bellocq Silver Gelatin Print "Nude on Chaise" from "Storyville Portraits"

Item Details

E.J. Bellocq (American; 1873-1949)
Nude on Chaise from Storyville Portraits
Printed by Lee Friedlander
Bellocq/Friedlander credit reproduction limitation and date stamp to verso

A silver gelatin photograph titled Nude on Chaise by celebrated American photographer E.J. Bellocq (1873-1949), printed by Lee Friedlander. From the artist’s Storyville Portraits, this photograph is marked to the verso with Bellocq/Friedlander credit reproduction limitation and date stamp, concealed by the frame. The work is presented under glass with off-white matting and housed in a black gesso and wood frame with foliate molding.

Literature
Lee Friedlander and John Szarkowski; E. J. Bellocq: Storyville Portraits (Photographs from the New Orleans Red-Light District, circa 1912), Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1970, Plate 18.

E.J. Bellocq remains a mysterious photographer due to the fact that may of his photographs and negatives were not discovered until after his death. He worked as a commercial photographer in the 1910s and photographed many portraits of prostitutes in Storyville, a red-light district in New Orleans. In 1949, eighty-nine glass plate negatives portraits of female prostitutes from the Storyville district were found in his desk, most of which were taken circa 1912. These negatives were acquired by photographer Lee Friedlander who salvaged what he could from the damaged negatives. Friedlander made contact prints of the 8 × 10 inch negatives on the same gold toned printing-out paper that Bellocq used in his rare prints, and is thereby credited for promoting Bellocq’s work. The Storyville photographs especially gained fame in 1970 when they were exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Condition

- minor wear scattered throughout frame.

Dimensions

- measurement of frame; visible image measures approximately 9.75" W x 7.75" H.

Item #

18DCC700-156