Laszlo Willinger, Marlene Dietrich, MGM Studios Los Angeles (1944), silver gelatin print, circa 1982

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Marlene Dietrich, MGM Studios Los Angeles (1944), circa 1982

silver gelatin print

signed and numbered AP 4/20 in the margin; inscribed #6 on the mount on the reverse; titled, numbered and with a typed inscription ‘From the Kobal Collection” on a gallery label on the backing on the reverse; signed by John Kobel. Printed circa 1982

16 × 12.5 in (40.6 × 31.8 cm) (image)

Auction Estimate:$1,000 - $2,000

Sale date:June 15 - 24, 2021

Price Realized

$1,140

(including Buyer's Premium)

Provenance

Georges Loranger XX Century Art, Toronto Private Collection, Toronto

John Kobal was a film historian, writer and a passionate collector of photos and memorabilia related to the film industry. He was born in Austria in 1940 and emigrated with his family to Ottawa, Canada. He started by acquiring Hollywood related photographs by the studio photographers which were either dumped or never used. In 1990 he founded The John Kobal Foundation where he donated his entire collection which included some 20,000 original negatives. The collection currently consists of 200,000 images. Laszlo Willinger was a celebrity portrait photographer who after establishing a studio in California, became a frequent contributor to magazines, providing glamorous shots of famous film celebrities. He was also one of the first photographers to experiment in colour. In this image he has captured Marlene Dietrich on the set of Kismet in 1944, her iconic personality enhanced by her pose and dress.