No Speed Bumps

E.O. Hoppé (1878-1972) – Forgotten Famed 1920s Photographer?

Customer in a snack bar, London, c.1935

Cecil Beaton called E.O. Hoppé ‘The Master’ and he was certainly one of the most famous photographers in the world in the 1920s.

E.O. Hoppé by Cecil Beaton

Hoppé tackled a range of subjects: land and city scapes, portraits, people at work, the nude and people in their tribal or ethnic contexts.

His portraits of working class people seem to work best. Though rather hampered by formal considerations, they have an immediacy that’s appealing. Most are honed down to focus on the sitter’s face, which adds to the impact of the image. The photographer avoids the trap of overworked social comment or, worse, sentimentalising or, worse still, satirising.

Flora, flower lady, Piccadilly Circus, London

 Jewish immigrant, New York City, c.1919 

 Mrs. Bennett, English type, 1921

 Mrs. Annie Brown, sheep farmer, (and mother of 12 children) Tasmania, 1930

 Jewish African type, New York, 1921

 Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park

Oxford Street, London, 1934

Some of the land and city scapes have a delicious and not too forced over geometrical composition. I’m obviously an old unreconstructed formalist!

 Richmond Park, Surrey, 1925

 Workmen’s dwellings, Leipzig, 1938

 Country Road, Kent, 1925

 Track

British Museum Station, London, 1937

One of the strengths of catching people at work, I think, is their ‘in the moment’ quality. You feel as though you could walk into the photograph and engage those present.

 Cats Meat Seller, London, 1933

 Taxicab Shelter, Piccadilly, London, 1934

 Street Scene, Berlin, 1928

Making waxworks at Madam Tussaud’s, London

All up I’ve loved finding the work of  E.O. Hoppé – though I have the sneaking suspicion at times I’m looking at high end ‘Life’ magazine photography.

What do you think?