Greta Garbo (Inspiration, 1931) by Clarence Sinclair Bull

Provenance:
Georges Loranger XX Century Art, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto

The Hollywood portrait, as much as the films themselves, galvanized the imagination of the American public and audiences around the world.  These photographs not only feed the public's appetite for glamour but created a glamour for the 20th century before the popularization of fashion photography and advertising.  Bull's photographs of Greta Garbo, one of the major star of MGM, was a defining moment in such icon image-making, and fused glamour with artistry.  The first session with Garbo was August 27, 1929 - from which a photograph now regarded as a classic and used to promote the film The Kiss.  It became the definitive portrait associated with Garbo and the film, through the publicity poster and wide distribution.  Garbo's face floats in a darkened background a calculated treatment of light (a comparable image and composition is Bill Brandt's well known photograph, Head/Arm), and which anticipated similar devices over the next 30 years.  One of many examples is the cover for the first Beatles album, Meet The Beatles (Parlaphone Records-EMI, 1962), which was considered radical even in the early 1960's.  

For these sessions Garbo was always in costume - as the film character - rather than informal paparazzi shots associated with celebrity photography in the late 1950s on. Props were used sparingly.  (A comparison can be made with Ruth Harriet Louise's photographs of Garbo).  The Bull-Garbo association was remarkable for its longevity, from 1929 to 1941.  It is estimated that Bull took over 4,000 individual shots during their collaboration.

We would like to thank Ihor Holubizky for contributing the note for this lot.