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?
