Looking through some copies of the Professional Photographer magazine I found an article on the top 100 photographers and in this list I found George Hurrell, who was famous for his portraits of the Hollywood movie stars.
George was born in 1904, in Covington (across the river from Cincinnati. George developed an interest in painting and drawing at a young age and only got involved in photography when started learning how to use a camera so he got photograph his own paintings.
He later studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1925, after completing his studies, George was commissioned to photograph painters and their paintings in Laguna Beach art colony. George moved west where he was hoping to continue to study art, but he found that he was taking portraits more than he was painting pictures.
One of George’s first portrait subjects was the famous avatrix Poncho Barnes. Through his work for her he met the silent movies star Ramon Novarro, shown below:
Ramon Novarro 1931
Ramon commissioned George for a series of portraits, which he showed off to others working at MGM. These portraits caught the eye of the leading lady Norma Shearer who was married to MGM Production Chief Irving G Thalberg. Norma hired George to take some ‘sizzling photographs’ of her for her bid to star as the lead role in the movie The Divorcee. Irving was so impressed with George’s work that he hired George as head of the MGM portrait gallery in 1930.
Over the next two years George photographed every star at MGM, including Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler. George’s portraits set a new standard for Hollywood portraits, inspiring a new name for the genre – glamour photography.
Following a disagreement with Howard Strickling, the head of publicity at MGM, George set up is own photographic studio on Sunset Boulevard, where the stars still flocked to George for their portraits.
After six years he moved to Warner Brothers where his portraits were to help building the careers of Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn and James Cagney. George later moved to Columbia where he worked with Rita Hayworth to shape her image.
After the second world war, where George shot training films and photographed generals at the Pentagon, George returned to Hollywood where he found that glamour photography was no longer in fashion. He moved to New York where he shot advertising and fashion layouts through the 1950’s.
After George returned to Hollywood in 1952, where he and his wife Phyllis started a television production company, George settled in Southern California 1956 where he moved back into the movie industry as a still photographer.
In 1965 his work was showcased at museums around the world. In 1976 George, working with Whitney Stine, published the book ‘The Hurrell Style’. Followed by other commemorative books and special edition prints of some of his newer Hollywood portraits of Sharon Stone, Brooke Shields, and John Travolta. Among his last assignments where photographing Warren Beatty and Annette Benning for the movie Bugsy, Natalie Cole for the best selling album ‘Unforgettable’ and his last subject Jennifer Flavin for a fashion layout.
George died of caner in 1992.
Some more examples of George’s work is shown below:
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Sources of information
Digital Photo Pro, Portrait Photographers, Professional Photography
Evaluation of Images
Having worked in Hollywood, George has styled his portrait photography to match the way the subject is portrayed in their movies, for example Humphrey Bogart (column two row three) is looking confident, reassuring and calm, just as he was portrayed in his movies.
Men are portrayed as per their most popular character, women are portrayed as glamorous, and gentle. The subject is always the main focus of the portrait, with limited depth of field blurring out any background features, although some still retained some detail of the background.
Many of George's portraits seem to be head only or head and shoulders, with very few three quarter or full length portraits.
The lighting is often harsh and uneven, with the portrait of Humphrey Bogart as a prime example of this. Despite the uneven lighting, the portraits do exhibit a good tonal range.
A number of the portraits do not feature the subject actually looking in the direction of the camera.
Hi Peter
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting. You may know one of my themes is 'hands' and I've found them sometimes difficult to place successfully in a portrait. Looking at these pics, Hurrell often places the hand out of shot or in shade, which gets over the problem of the hand nearer the camera looking large. His lighting is great too. Great piece.
Pip