Alfred Cheney Johnston lost Ziegfeld Follies photographer of Jazz Age beauties

GARDEN OF GIRLS, November 1925, on CD-Rom for MAC or PC. INCREDIBLE ARTICLES of the Jazz Age, Art Deco era as well as amazing photographs done by one of the preeminent photographers of the day!!

By 1925, Hollywood photographer Edwin Bower Hesser had set up his new studio on the east coast at the Hotel des Artistes in New York City, the same building where his friend and rival Alfred Cheney Johnston, Ziegfeld Follies photographer, resided. Soon Hesser, like Johnston, was photographing all of the Broadway beauties of the day. 27 of the photographs in this magazine have a Hesser byline and most of the remaining are probably his as well.

INCLUDED ARE THE INFAMOUS Louise Brooks (2) as well as Mae Murray, Corrine Griffith, Estelle Taylor, Bessie Love, Eileen Carmoody, Emma Kligge, Louise Blackburne, Marjorie Leet, Mary Eaton (4 shots, one is a centerfold), Ann Pennington, Patsy Ruth Miller, Gloria Swanson, Peggy Watts, Norma Shearer, Hilda Ferguson, Ethel Shutta, Flo Kennedy, Katherine Burke, Mabelle Swor, Alice Calhoun, Kathryn Ray, Ivanelle Ladd, Yvonne Grey, Muriel Grey, Pauline Garon, Pango Girls from Earl Carroll's Vanities (White photo), Peggy Shaw, and Gladys Cooper and Ivor Novello (Sacha, of London photo). Cover is of Eileen Culshaw, first prize winner in the 1925 Atlantic City Beauty Pagent and a Gertrude Hoffman girl in the Winter Garden show "Artists and Models." Two rare outdoor draped nudes, one marked "Girlhood" with a Hesser byline and the other of Bessie Love- unmarked, but undoubtedly also by Hesser, reflect the influence of Califorina photographer Albert Arthur Allen and his early outdoor nude studies. During the 1920's period, Hesser self-published a series of pulp magazines with more of these outdoor nude studies which became quite popular during the Jazz Age. Hesser in turn, influenced Alfred Cheney Johnston to try his hand at outdoor nudes, resulting in his "Enchanting Beauty" book of 1937. Designed after the spiral bound 1935 CAMERA annual, "Enchanting Beauty" appears to have had limited success, though it went through several printings and was produced in two slightly different sizes to keep costs down. Individual framed prints were sold as well.

ARTICLES IN GARDEN OF GIRLS INCLUDE: "What Girls are Wearing on the New York Stage," "The Poetry of Marjorie Leet," "The Stage as a Sensible Profession for Young Women"- an interview with Mary Eaton by Edwin Bower Hesser, "To Dye or Not to Dye"- an article by Ned Rea about girls changing their hair color with illustrations of Peggy Shaw (interesting for those interested in vintage beauty shop or hair styling), "Are You Really in Love?"- a "love questionaire" by Peggy Watts. Back cover includes advertisement for more of Hesser's work in the next issue with a special section "THE VENUS OF THE STAGE."

For more information about Hesser's friend, Alfred Cheney Johnston, check out "JAZZ AGE BEAUTIES-The Lost Collection of Ziegfeld Photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston" by Robert Hudovernik, which may be ordered online.

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