Photo of the week

In 1950, George Hoyningen-Huene created a new passport photograph for his friend Greta Garbo (18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990). He took the portrait a few months before the Swedish star became a naturalized citizen of the United States. She must have liked the picture as she continued to use it for many years to come, including on a tourist card application for Colombia. Look closely and you will notice that the card gives her date of birth as 1909, four years after the real date!

NOTE: The image of the passport is taken from the Julien’s Auction website. The passport was sold in 2012: www.julienslive.com

Today is the birthday of nightclub sensation Josephine Baker. She became an icon of the roaring twenties thanks to her role in La Revue Nègre at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris in 1925, which made her an overnight star. Baker was asked to join the Folies Bergère, the famous Parisian dance hall known for its burlesques. George Hoyningen-Huene took a series of photographs of the beautiful dancer in the 1920s. This photo was taken in 1929. Source: Condé Nast Archive.

Today we honor and salute Peter Johann "Johnny" Weissmuller, born June 2nd, 1904.

Piscine Molitor: The swimming pool where Tarzan was a lifeguard.

Piscine Molitor, once one of Paris's most fashionable public swimming pools. Just how chic the Piscine Molitor once was can be judged by the fact that the US Olympic gold medallist and future Tarzan actor, Johnny Weissmuller, was a lifeguard.
He'd won three gold medals at the 1924 Paris Olympics and two in Amsterdam in 1928 but spent a season at Molitor giving swimming lessons and rescuing bathers in distress.
Molitor's pool, rowing machines and punchballs, meanwhile, helped him stay in the right shape to land the Tarzan role a couple of years later.
Source AP.

The complex was built in 1929 and inaugurated by Olympic swimmers Aileen Riggin, Matthew Gauntlett and Johnny Weissmuller. The pool is known for its Art Deco designs and the popular introduction of the bikini by Louis Réard on 5 July 1946.
Source Wikipedia

Photo taken by George Hoyningen-Huene in 1930.

”Salvador Dali has been caught in one of his own dreams. Hoyningen-Huene has photographed Monsieur and Madame Dali enmeshed in a new still life called ”L’Instant Sublime”. It represents, says M.Dali, that sublime instant of a suspended time, just before things begin to happen. The light is about to fade, the drop of water is about to fall on the egg, the egg is about to break, the snail is about crawl up on the phone.....”

From Harper’s BAZAAR, April, 1939.

Today is the birthday of Salvador Dali (May 11, 1904 - January 23, 1989).

Today is the birthday of fashion model, photographer and photo journalist Elizabeth ”Lee” Miller (1907-1977) @leemillerarchives .

Lee was one of Hoyningen-Huene’s favorite models and later a distinguished photograper. For an account of her extraordinary life, see the biography by her son Anthony Penrose; The lives of Lee Miller.

Lee Miller, coiffure by Callon. Photograph by George Hoyningen-Huene in 1930.

Today is the birthday of Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977). Charlie Chaplin was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer. This portrait was taken by George Hoyningen-Huene in 1932.

Today is the birthday of the wonderful actress Joan Crawford, born Lucille Fay LeSueur (1904-1977). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1945.
This photograph was taken by George Hoyningen-Huene in 1940.

A. E. Sudan Male Nude, photographed by George Hoyningen-Huene in the 1930’s.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Olga Spessivtseva and Serge Lifar in Bacchus and Ariadne, Paris, 1931. Photographed by George Hoyningen-Huene.

Actress Colette Salomon in a Bugatti T35.
”The Modern Woman” or ”La Femme Moderne” as reflected in George Hoyningen-Huene’s work for Vogue, 1927.