1. BARON ADOLF DE MEYER, Mrs. Brown Potter, 1908, 8.25x6.25" Photogravure from Camera Work, Issue 24, October 1908, Printed 1908.

2. BARON ADOLF DE MEYER, Miss J. Ranken, 1912, 7.75x5.875" Photogravure from Camera Work Issue 40, October 1912, Printed 1912.

Socialite Cora Urquhart Brown Potter, who used the stage name Mrs. Brown Potter, was a famous actress in Europe and America. New Orleans-born and a legendary beauty, she was a natural subject for early pictorial fashion photography.

Baron De Meyer understood high fashion and high society.

Adolf De Meyer's birthplace (Paris or Germany), nationality, and other biographical facts are uncertain, because he told different stories about his background throughout his life. Even his name changed; Adolph was sometimes Adolf, he became Baron de Meyer in about 1898, and he changed his first name to Gayne in 1916 (on the advice of an astrologer). Residing variously in Dresden, London, Paris, and New York, de Meyer led the life of a cosmopolitan aristocrat and aesthete. Most of his work is softly focused and refined, be it still lifes, fashion, dance, or portrait work.

De Meyer apparently spent his childhood in Paris and Germany. He began exhibiting creative photographs in 1894 in New York, London, and Paris and two years later moved to London from Dresden. Around 1896, he married Olga Caracciolo, the goddaughter of the Prince of Wales, Edward VII, which catapulted him into the British aristocracy. Two years later, he joined both the conservative Royal Photographic Society and the Linked Ring Brotherhood, a more artistically advanced group of photographers.

In 1903, de Meyer visited the United States and spent time in the studio of Gertrude Käsebier. In 1909, now a member of the Photo-Secession, he presented an exhibition of his Autochromes (color transparencies on glass) and monochromatic prints at the group's Little Galleries, where he also had a solo show two years later. Alfred Stieglitz was so enthralled with his work that he presented it in Camera Work in 1908 and 1912, the latter comprising a full issue of fourteen photogravures.

In 1913, a year after he moved to New York, Vogue reproduced a sensitive image by de Meyer of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, which subsequently led Conde Nast to hire him as the magazine's first full-time fashion photographer. De Meyer's work over the next half dozen transformed the field, with graceful poses, elegant props, soft-focus effects, and contra-jour lighting. Then, in 1921, William Randolph Hearst lured him to Paris and Harper's Bazaar. There, for the next decade, de Meyer was highly successful and visible as the magazine's leading fashion writer, stylist, and photographer, even dabbling in interior decoration and clothing design.

Christian A. Peterson Pictorial Photography at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Christian A. Peterson: Privately printed, 2012) christianapeterson.com

CREDIT: http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/photographer/Adolf__de_Meyer/A/

1. Excellent. Minor wear. Edge wear.
2. Excellent. Minor wear. Mount missing corner