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essays: Gael Newton | Belinda Hungerford | Anne O'Hehir | Caroline McGregor
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. SET PIECES Carolyn McGregor |  | . . The original essay was illustrated within the pages -
the plates for this essay are presented separately on the illustrations page Strikingly lit and energetically composed, Anton Bruehl began working on his musical and theatre studies under the auspices of the Conde Nast Bruehl-Bourges colour photography program. Bruehl specialised in these distinctive and highly mannered tableaux for a range of clients, including Esquire magazine, in the mid 1940s. These works were often treated by the photographer as giant, almost abstract still lifes. They showcase the artistry that Bruehl prized in his photography, and for which he spent hours painstakingly perfecting each shot – recreating sets in his studio, searching for harmony in composition, lighting and colour, and re-designing props and costumes if need be. When the arts-oriented society magazine Vanity Fair merged with fashion magazine Vogue in 1936, publisher Conde Montrose Nast proposed that Bruehl provide theatrical images for the new, broader content of the merged magazine format. Nast and his editors considered what they called 'theatricals' to be Bruehl's best work. One such image was an atmospheric vignette depicting a scene from the Rogers and Hart Broadway musical comedy On your toes, of 1936.1
The musical, now regarded as a turning point in Broadway theatre, makes innovative use of a 'show within a show,' in which the narratives of several stories are interwoven. In Bruehl's image, students of the Knickerbocker University and members of the Russian Ballet Company are putting on a production of Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, a jazz ballet. A dancer in the ballet company, jealous of the ballet's leading man, a student of the Knickerbocker dance school, has hired two hit men to kill him during the performance of Slaughter. In turn, Slaughter tells the story of a customer in a seedy Tenth Avenue strip joint who falls in love with a stripper. After closing, they are discovered together by the Big Boss and the dancer is tragically shot. Using a single image to convey such a complex narrative had its challenges. Contemporary audiences would have been familiar with the characters and their stories, but through carefully crafted composition and use of other dramatic effects, Bruehl brought to life the many layers of the musical plot. In Bruehl's portrayal, dancers are warming up backstage for the big finale number; some are casually posed, others are running over lines and having a quiet smoke. The two central characters, Vera – played by Russian dancer Tamara Geva – and Junior the hoofer, played by Ray Bolger, rehearse the moment that the dancer meets her end. It is a mystery as to whether we are looking at the actual backstage or the backstage that is depicted in the musical. A spotlight rakes across the scene, illuminating some parts and throwing others into deep shadow, imbuing the image with a moodiness and mystery that is illustrative of the tension in the plot. The casual poses of the dancers betray their lack of awareness of the scheming hit men about to strike. The overall effect of the image contrasts with what is on the whole a light-hearted musical comedy. Conde Nast sent a personal note to Bruehl on 29 November 1938, simply saying that it was 'a great photograph of a great ballet'.2 Bruehl's style contrasts with contemporaries such as Alfred Eisenstaedt and Henri Cartier-Bresson, who sought to photograph things as they are. As photojournalists, they took to the streets with cameras at the ready in a quest, as Cartier-Bresson put it, 'to discover the image and seize it’.3 Yet something they did have in common with Bruehl was the desire to tell a story in a single, decisive shot. For Bruehl, storytelling was the purpose of photographic illustration, but it was also about controlling what the viewer sees. In a publicity shot photographed for Vogue, tap dancer Billy 'Bojangles' Robinson is caught in action as his character the Mikado in Hot , Michael Todd's jazz adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical, which was performed at the 1939-40 World's Fair in New York. Bojangles and the ensemble dancers, Whitey's Findy Hoppers, pose precariously in mid hop, lending the image its dynamism. But this is far from a spontaneous action shot. According to Bruehl, there was no such thing as a 'lucky shot’. Everyone involved would have had to hold their pose for some time for the long exposure, and they were possibly leaning on hidden supports.4 Seventh symphony also photographed for Vogue, pictures a symphonic one-act ballet choreographed by Feonide Massine to music by Beethoven, with the theme of the creation and destruction of Earth. It was premiered in New York on 5 May 1938 by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, whose members were to make their home in New York after the outbreak of the Second World War. Bruehl pictures the cast posed in a scene from second movement, 'The Earth’. The solemn women carry the lifeless body of a young man, whose death brings to an end the joyous celebration of life and creation that is portrayed in the first movement. Taking his cues from the theatre, Bruehl's figures inhabit a flat, vertical plane, suggestive of a stage, and are lit dramatically, framed by shadows and a curtained proscenium arch. The image echoes the tragedy and pathos of the Descent from the Cross, as depicted by Rubens in 1612-14, with the same power of feeling and grandeur. Under Bruehl's direction, cameras and array of lights, cabaret and stage performers were encapsulated in single images, presenting what audiences during the Depression and the anxious years of the Second World War craved – escapism and excitement. They are more than 'stills,' becoming rather like the highly concentrated tableaux of religious art found in the side chapels of old churches. The story is known but the image carries some subliminal vision embodied in the artist's style and interpretation. Then, with clever composition – such as the back of a figure in foreground, or half out of shot – the imaginary fourth wall separating the audience from the stage is broken, and we the viewer are lead in to join the dance. the plates for this essay are presented separately on the illustrations page
Notes - In a letter to Bruehl dated 26 February 1936, Conde Nast proposed that for Vogue Bruehl concentrate on theatricals/which, in my opinion, has so far produced the best examples of color photography published any time, any where! Conde Nast archive. New York, Conde Montrose Nast Papers, 1873-1942, 1913-1978,1933-1942, MC 001, Box 1, Folder 13, Bruehl, Anton—1932-June 1942, p 1.
- Conde'Nast archive. New York, Conde Montrose Nast Papers, 1873-1942,1913-1978, 1933-1942, MC 001, Box 1, Folder 13, Bruehl, Anton—1932-June 1942, p 1.
- H Cartier-Bresson,The mind's eye'(1976), in H Cartier-Bresson, The minds eye: writings on photography and photographers, Aperture, New York, 2005, pp 15-16.
- A reproduction is held as an example ol the best work by Bruehl in the Conde'Nast Archive, New York, Conde Montrose Nast Papers, 1873-1942,1913-1978,1933-1942, MC 001.
In The Spotlight contents page | Illustrations - photographs essays: Gael Newton | Belinda Hungerford | Anne O'Hehir | Caroline McGregor main Bruehl page |