Sale 213 Lot 211

E. J. BELLOCQ
American, 1873 – 1949
Woman standing in her underwear; Storyville Portrait, New Orleans, 1911-13; printed 1970s by Lee Friedlander
Gold-toned gelatin silver print first taken in the early 1910s by New Orleans commercial photographer E. J. Bellocq who produced a series of approximately 89 glass-plate negatives documenting the women of Storyville, the city's legally sanctioned red-light district. While these portraits remained a secret until after Bellocq’s death in 1949, when they were discovered in his desk and later purchased and printed by photographer Lee Friedlander in the late 1960s and 1970s. Framed, Not examined out of frame.
Image (as matted): 10 x 8 inches; frame: 18 x 15 inches
$1,400-2,400

ARTIST PROFILE: Ernest Joseph Bellocq (1873–1949) was an American professional photographer in New Orleans, born into a wealthy French Creole family in the French Quarter. While he earned a living documenting landmarks, ships, and machinery for local companies, he is best remembered for his private, "haunting" portraits of prostitutes in Storyville, the city's legal red-light district. Bellocq led an increasingly eccentric and solitary life, focusing almost entirely on his photography, which included documenting opium dens in Chinatown alongside his more well-known portraits. After his death in 1949, his Storyville glass negatives were discovered and later purchased by photographer Lee Friedlander, whose 1970 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art brought Bellocq's work international acclaim. These portraits, some of which feature faces deliberately scraped out while the emulsion was still wet, are celebrated for their unique poignancy and for providing a rare record of the women and interiors of New Orleans' early 20th-century underworld.