photo: George Hurrell, Courtesy of the Kobal Collection
No other photographer has shaped the image of what we perceive as “Hollywood glamour” as much as George Hurrell. In the 1930s and 1940 he was the one who took the press pictures of all the important movie stars. His photographs have been reproduced in the media an uncountable number of times and have been seen by millions of people. Now, a new book about George Hurrell has been published that contains his most important works. Check out a small preview after the jump.
From Clark Gable to Katherine Hepburn, from Humphrey Bogart to Greta Garbo – there is no major movie star of Hollywood’s most glamorous period that he did not photographe. And George Hurrell’s job was to create icons out of these actors. Indeed it was a time with a high demand for grace, glamour and icons: When he started, the U.S. was suffering under the Great Depression, and soon later the Second World War started. Naturally, we do not find any trace to these events in Hurrell’s photography. His pictures – that, by the way, are heavily retouched, long before Photoshop – are all about the beautiful surface: They display beauty, youth, glamour, fame and grace, they are intended to let people dream and forget about reality…
HURRELL: The Kobal Collection
288 pages, EUR 59,99, available at Reel Art Press
