Walter Kuhn

Walter Francis Kuhn (1877 –1949) was an American painter and an organizer of the famous Armory Show of 1913, which was America's first large-scale introduction to European Modernism.

Clown with Beret, 1942 (oil on canvas)

By the 1940s, Kuhn became increasingly irascible and distant from old friends. When the Ringling Brothers Circus was in town, he attended night after night. He also became frustrated by the lack of attention his own work was receiving and was particularly strident about the Museum of Modern Art's support of abstraction and neglect of American art in the postwar period.

In 1948, he was institutionalized, and on July 13, 1949, he died suddenly from a perforated ulcer. 

Snow in New York

Commuters prepare to board a subway car at an outdoor station in Brooklyn during a snowstorm in New York, U.S. January 4, 2018. 

Ford Capri

Pictures taken at a showroom of car dealer Dennis J Hands in the Reading (UK) area, showing the new Ford Capri on the forecourt, and the promotion ladies enjoying the day.

The Ford slogan, used as part of the promotion was, " the car you have always promised yourself".

The first Ford Capri was introduced in January 1969 at the Brussels Motor Show, with sales starting the following month. The intention was to reproduce in Europe the success Ford had had with the North American Ford Mustang; to produce a European pony car.
Pictures taken 14th February 1969.

Idris Muhammad

Idris Muhammad (born Leo Morris; 1939 –2014) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He had an extensive career performing jazz, funk, R&B, and soul music and recorded with musicians such as Ahmad Jamal, Lou Donaldson, Pharoah Sanders, Bob James, and Tete Montoliu.

Born Leo Morris in New Orleans, Idris Muhammad grew up in the city's 13th Ward in a home next door to a dry cleaner’s shop. He later would claim the sound of the shop’s steam presser influenced his hi-hat technique.

Growing up, he spent time with fellow New Orleanians The Neville Brothers. Also interested in other instruments, he showed early talent as a percussionist, playing in a Mardi Gras parade at age 9.

He changed his name to Idris Muhammad in the 1960s upon his conversion to Islam. In 1966, he married singer Dolores "LaLa" Brooks, a former member of the Crystals. She converted to Islam with him and went for a time by the name Sakinah Muhammad. They separated in 1999.

Michael Crawford

Michael Patrick Smith CBE (1942), known professionally as Michael Crawford, is an English actor, comedian, and singer.

Crawford is best known for playing both the hapless Frank Spencer in the sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and the title role in the musicals ‘Barnum’ and The Phantom of the Opera. His acclaimed performance in the latter earned him both the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical and Tony Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical.

 

He has received international critical acclaim and won numerous awards during his acting career, which has included many film and television performances as well as stage work on both London's West End and on Broadway.

Crawford has also published the autobiography Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied With String. Since 1987, he has served as the leader and public face for the British social cause organization the Sick Children's Trust.

Exide - The Long Life Battery

Cardboard sign advertising Exide Batteries - the long life battery. 

Lisa Fonssagrives

Fashion model Lisa Fonssagrives at Paddington Station, London, England.

Lisa Fonssagrives by Irving Penn (1953).

Don McAlpine

Film crew shooting a beach scene for the 9 screen Australian pavilion at Expo 70 Japan. 

The cinematographer wearing a red beret is Don McAlpine. 

Montaigu-de-Quercy

Farmer with large gourd at a market in Montaigu-de-Quercy, Tarn-et-Garonne department, France.

Mount Rushmore

The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (Lakota: Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe, or Six Grandfathers) in the Black Hills near Keystone, South Dakota, United States.

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum designed the sculpture, called Shrine of Democracy, and oversaw the project's execution from 1927 to 1941 with the help of his son, Lincoln. The sculpture features the 60-foot-tall (18 m) heads of four United States presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, chosen to represent the nation's birth, growth, development, and preservation, respectively.

Mount Rushmore (Six Grandfathers) before construction, c. 1905

The sculpture at Mount Rushmore is built on land that was illegally taken from the Sioux Nation in the 1870s. The Sioux continue to demand return of the land, and in 1980 the US Supreme Court ruled that the taking of the Black Hills required just compensation, and awarded the tribe $102 million. 

The Sioux have refused the money, which has grown with interest to over a billion dollars and demand the return of the land. This conflict continues, leading some critics of the monument to refer to it as a "Shrine of Hypocrisy".

Almost a century later, the granite face of the monument is suffering badly from erosion, caused by the small fissures that were accidentally created during construction of the monument that overtime collected acid rain.

The original remedy to cover the faces with a transparent synthetic  resin was abandoned for environmental reasons and, looking for alternatives, Basque sculptor Iñaki Perurena (well known for the Peru Harri Sculpture Park in Leitza), came up with the idea to cover the complete sculpture by one giant txapeldun beret. 

The idea originated from the park's shelters and proved to give excellent protection in every respect from the elements. Funding dependent, work should start by April next year. 

 

To The Dogs

An elderly woman with a large number of dogs of various different breeds, some of them riding in a cart which she is pushing. Circa 1920s.
 

Tired

A tired elderly woman sleeping on a British train.

Location and date unknown.

The Army Wants You

The Army Wants You

Blue Print for a fine career, 1960

What are YOU doing about EDUCATION? Army Education Poster, by Sgt H F (Fred) Darking (1911-1999), Royal Engineers. 1945

Havelyn Elmer Chiasson

Havelyn Elmer Chiasson (1921 – 2019) from Miscou Island, New Brunswick – Canada, attended an English and French school while his father worked as a fisherman.

When the Second World War began in 1939, Chiasson enlisted in the Carleton and York Regiment in Bathurst before later becoming a member of the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment.

He would serve with this unit until the end of the conflict as a radio operator.

On 4 May 1945, Chiasson’s Colonel asked him to send out a broadcast radio message that said: “Ceasefire! Don’t fire unless you are fired on!” These words, within a few hours, marked a ceasefire on the Western Front.

Exhausted in Darlington

An exhausted conscript on Nation Service sleeps at Darlington Railway Station en rout to or from a posting to the Northern military base at Catterick, York. 

Painting by Malcolm Greensmith.

Bomb Disposal

Bomb disposal is an explosives engineering profession using the process by which hazardous explosive devices are disabled or otherwise rendered safe. 

Bomb disposal is an all-encompassing term to describe the separate, but interrelated functions in the military fields of explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and improvised explosive device disposal (IEDD), and the public safety roles of public safety bomb disposal (PSBD) and the bomb squad.

 

John Albok

John Albok (1894–1982) was a Hungarian photographer who immigrated to the United States and documented street scenes in New York City during the Great Depression and later.

Albok was born in Munkacs, Hungary, in what is now Ukraine. After apprenticing to a tailor from the ages of 13 to 17, he was drafted into the Hungarian army. He began photographing life in the hospital and prison where he worked. During the war, Albok's father killed himself and two of his sisters died of starvation. In 1921, Albok immigrated to the United States.

Albok worked as a tailor in a shop at 96th Street and Madison Avenue. He lived above the shop with his wife, fellow Hungarian Ilona Kiss, and their daughter, also named Ilona. He photographed street life primarily in his immediate neighbourhood for sixty years, until his death in 1982.

After winning a weekly photo contest held by the New York Herald Tribune in 1937, he captured the attention of Grace Mayer, photography curator at the Museum of the City of New York. His first solo show, Faces of the City, was held at the Museum in 1938.[3]

Today, Albok's work may be found in collections at the Museum of the City of New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, and many other institutions.

Rower

Photo of unknown photographer and subject from the Getty Museum, likely from about 1880-1895. 

A man holding onto a wooden pole and leaning back towards a boat. He is resting one knee on a rock and one hand stretched out towards the row boat. He is wearing trousers with suspenders, a beret, and a necktie.

Alfred Grévin

Alfred Grévin (1827 –1892) was a 19th-century caricaturist, best known during his lifetime for his caricature silhouettes of contemporary Parisian women. He was also a sculptor, cartoonist, and designed costumes and sets for popular theater.

He studied natural sciences and drawing at the College of Tonnerre. His first job was as an apprentice draughtsman for Paris à Lyon à la Méditerranée railways. In his free time, he would draw for fun.

In 1853 he moved to Paris. He put his cartooning talents at the service of the newspaper Le Gaulois, then headed by Arthur Meyer. He then went on to work for Le Journal amusant and Le Charivari. To supplement his meagre salary as a cartoonist and illustrator, he worked as a theatre costume designer, and wrote plays.

In 1881, Meyer had the idea, along with Alfred Grévin, to represent the personalities that made the front page of the news section as wax mannequins, which allowed visitors – in an era before photography was used in the press – to put a face to the names in the news. This was the beginning of the Musée Grévin, which opened its doors on 5 June 1882 and swiftly became successful. Grévin met Émile Zola on several occasions, whom he wanted to include a portrait of in his collections.

Grevin spent the final two years of his life paralyzed and died of a sudden stroke of apoplexy in 1892 at Saint-Mandé.

James Clarke Hook

James Clarke Hook RA (1819 –1907) was an English painter and etcher of marine, genre and historical scenes, and landscapes and an early British beret adept.

Hook was born in London, the son of James Hook, a draper and one time Judge of the Mixed Commission Court in Sierra Leone. His mother was the second daughter of Bible scholar Dr Adam Clarke – hence the painter's second name.

In 1836, Hook was admitted as a student to the Royal Academy, London, where he worked for three years.

A travelling studentship in painting was awarded to Hook for Rizpah watching the dead sons of Saul in 1846, and he went to Italy for three years, having married fellow artist, Rosalie Burton, before leaving England. Rosalie's diaries present vivid pictures of their life in Italy and later. Hook passed through Paris, worked diligently for some time in the Louvre, traversed Switzerland, and though he stayed only part of three years in Italy, gained much from studies of Titian and other Venetians.

 The influence of these old masters dominated the future coloration of Hooke's pictures, and he applied the artistic lessons learned from his travels to the painting of romantic subjects and those English themes of land and sea which became his trademarks.