Untitled - Issues of Image Magazine - George Eastman House

Mexican photographs had in the meantime
been exhibited at the Delphic Galleries in 1933
and published the same year in a book, Mexico,
which was given an award as the best example
of book illustration by the American Institute of
Graphic Arts for the years 1931-33. Jose Clemente
Orozco, the Mexican painter, wrote about
Bruehl's Mexico:
The first word that comes to mind on
seeing these photographs is magnificent.
Anything that may be expected from the art
of painting is there; perfection of craftsmanship—perfection
of plastic organization.
And this is certainly Mexico as revealed
by great photography. The strong
2
and unique individuality of a people —
mysterious mixture of the most simple and
primitive with the highest refinement and
unaffected, natural good taste.
How many painters have tried to reproduce
those faces, those scenes, those
rhythmic movements. All in vain. The subject
is so powerful and complete in itself
that it would take an effort as powerful
merely to reproduce it. Mr. Bruehl's work
is more than reproduction. 4
Paul Strand's photographs for The Mexican
Portfolio developed into a greater body of work
extending the possibilities of photography in
portraying people of various nations or regions
of the world. But Bruehl never returned to this
use of photography for which he had demonstrated
his talents so well in Mexico; the book
remains however a strong, and elegant demonstration
of the possibilities of this genre.
Shortly before the publication of his Mexican
photographs, Anton Bruehl began experimenting
with color photography, at a time when
many other photographers and photo-technicians
were searching for a practical and effective
method of producing color photographs for
the printed page. In 1932 Fernand Bourges, a
color technician working for Conde Nast Engravers,
developed a process for creating a
color transparency made of thin acetate sheets
coated with light-sensitive emulsions which
were dyed and sandwiched together with glass.
Conde Nast Engravers used these extremely
fine color transparencies as guides and, with
hand work, made the printing plates in a painstaking
process which resulted in some of the
finest color reproductions ever made.
Anton Bruehl was invited to become the chief
color photographer for Conde Nast Publications
working with Bourges under an agreement that
all would collaborate in the production of any
color photographs for advertisers which any of
the three (photographer, technician, or engravers)
contracted for. The team of Bruehl-
Bourges together with Conde Nast Engravers
produced color photographs for the printed
page which had, as an ad in Vogue claimed,
"the compelling beauty of a painting and the
fidelity of a blueprint" without much serious
competition until the advent of Kodachrome in
1935. Among the best of Bruehl's color work
for Vogue and Vanity Fair are the photographs
with rich shadow areas surrounding taut, vibrant
arrangements of singers and dancers
from New York night clubs and stage productions,
such as the one reproduced in black and
white on the cover.
At their best, Bruehl's photographs are deliberate,
non-anecdotal and carefully composed
graphic representations, whether earlier semiabstract
portraits and product photographs or
later color portraits and human still-lifes. The
constant flow through his studio of star personalities
and products of the depressed but
forward-looking economy may have occasionally
resulted, as Bruehl feels, in somewhat less
than enduring photographs. However, it unquestionably
produced a revealing and evocative
portrait of the popular aspirations of a culture,
enabling Dr. M. F. Agha, art director for Vogue,
to state in 1935, that, photography is "a perfect
means of graphic expression for an artist who
lives in the days of skyscrapers, engineers,
saxophones and tap dancing. . . ." 5
Notes
1 Dr. M. F. Agha, "A Word on European Photography,"
Pictorial Photography in America, vol. 5. (New York:
Pictorial Photographers of America at the New York Art
Center, 1929), n.p.
2 From an unpublished interview with Anton Bruehl, July
9, 10, 1975.
3 Frank Crowninshield, "Foreword," Pictorial Photography
in America, vol. 5 (New York: Pictorial Photographers of
America at the New York Art Center, 1929), n.p.
4 Jose Clemente Orozco, from promotional material for:
Anton Bruehl, Mexico, (New York: Delphic Studios, 1933).
5 Dr. M. F. Agha, in preface to: T. J. Maloney, ed., U.S.
Camera 1935, (New York: Morrow & Co., 1935), p. 4.
Selected Bibliography
Bruehl, Anton. Mexico. New York: Delphic Studios, 1933.
. Tropic Patterns. Hollywood, Florida: Dukane
Press, 1970.
Bruehl, Anton, and Bourges, Fernand. Color Sells. New
York: Conde Nast Publications, 1935.
Bruehl, Anton and Lowell, Thomas. Magic Dials. New
York: Lee Furman, 1939.
Sipley, Louis Walton. "Color Grows During the Depression."
A Half Century of Color. New York: MacMillan &
Co., 1951.
Bruehl, Anton. "Dietrich by Bruehl." Cinema Arts, September
1937, pp. 51-57.
. "I Don't Like the Photographic Press." Popular
Photography, January 1938, p. 15.
Kelly, Etna M. "Anton Bruehl, Master of Color." Photography,
November 1936, p. 6.
Maloney, Thomas J. "Photography Comes of Age."
Review of Reviews and World's Work, June 1933, pp.
19-23.
"The Brothers Bruehl." U.S. Camera, March-April 1939,
pp. 34-35.