Hixon-Connelly

**mrcheese** · November 15th, 2009, 11:45 AM

Orval Hixon
Time Period: 1914-1930
Location: Main Street, Kansas City, MO
“Hixon was the premier autodidact photographer of the midwest arts & crafts movement. A pictorialist in the sense that he considered the photographic print an art object worthy of fetishistic elaboration, he nevertheless was drawn to artifice rather than nature. He was a portraitist, working at times in conjuction with James Hargis Connelly, the Chicago photographer, interested in evoking the magic of theatrical craft in the studio. His manipulations of negatives are often extensive, sometimes creating strange arabesques of light, or reticulations of shadow in the backgrounds for graphic interest. He had a penchant for dark and half shaded prints. While he published in national magazines frequently in the 1920s, he reproduced images lack the impact of the original prints which are among the strangest and most compelling of the period.”
© David S. Shields http://broadway.cas.sc.edu/index.php...ographer&id=22

"Recent studies of the celebrity photographer have virtually ignored the work of Orval Hixon. The studios wanted him out there but he refused.....Hixon by contrast stayed in the Midwest. The celebrities he photographed came to him in Kansas City - something of a tribute in itself. And unlike these other notables Hixon did not confine himself to celebrity portraiture. He lent to the faces of the street, so to speak, the same sensitivity and burnished touch that he lavished on the stage and screen greats like Theda Bara and Wallace Reed...
...Orval Hixon's work, particularly the celebrity photographs of 1918 to 1930, reveal the fruits of this theatrical tradition in portraiture. He has shown me the glass negatives dating back to that time. They have been carefully worked over with the artist's brush and etching tool and pencil. The plate for him was only so much raw material with which he could work. These plates, old and now fragile, are paintings in themselves, ghostly images in negative possessing the haunting quality of music half-remembered. They demonstrate the elusive union of the artist's brush and the mechanical fidelity of the plate. All of which accounts for the unique mixture of dream and reality in Hixon's best work....
...His memories are not reveries lost in nostalgic haze, but rather accounts of expeditions with Valeska Surratt to find the right kind of wildflower for a sitting, a spaghetti dinner home cooked for him by Fanny Brice, a sitting with a young kid from Olathe, Kansas by the name of Buddy Rogers who wanted to go to Hollywood--and did. And so it went..."
© John Tibbetts
American Classic Screen Magazine-Vol Two No 4-1978)
http://www.orvalhixon.com/biography.html

James Hargis Connelly
Time Period: 1916-1940
Location: Kansas City, Chicago
“Despite learning the greater part of his art from an adventurous experimentalist in imagery, Orval Hixon, James Hargis Connelly cultivated a straight style of portraiture. A specialist in female headshots, usually presented with a focal point a little above the sitter's brow line, half length portraits and full figure likenesses were relatively rare in his oeuvre. A masterful retoucher, all of his heads are free of blemishes, well-disposed in the pictorial field, and lit to give a richly tone three-dimensional relief.”
© David S. Shields
http://broadway.cas.sc.edu/index.php...ographer&id=78

Adele Astaire maybe

Barbara Stanwyck

Bessie McCoy Davis

Beth Beri maybe

Denishawn_Lillian Powell, Charlotte Brendel, Grace McCrea, Irene Pryor, Claire Niles, ca 1918

Edna Wallace Hopper

Joan Crawford

June Eldridge

Lillian Lane

Marjorie Gateson

Pauline Frederick

Ruth St Denis and Ted Shawn in Tillers of the Soil, 1916

Ruth St Denis

Valeska Suratt

Zoe Barnett

**Glamourtog** · October 29th, 2015, 11:48 AM

Ziegfeld Follies Flapper Tot Qualters

Orval Hixon Modern Dance Photograph Ruth St Denis Orientalist 1917

November 15th, 2009, 11:45 AM	#1
mrcheese Vintage Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Kyiv Posts: 578 Thanks: 44 Thanked 17,705 Times in 579 Posts	Hixon-Connelly Orval Hixon Time Period: 1914-1930 Location: Main Street, Kansas City, MO “Hixon was the premier autodidact photographer of the midwest arts & crafts movement. A pictorialist in the sense that he considered the photographic print an art object worthy of fetishistic elaboration, he nevertheless was drawn to artifice rather than nature. He was a portraitist, working at times in conjuction with James Hargis Connelly, the Chicago photographer, interested in evoking the magic of theatrical craft in the studio. His manipulations of negatives are often extensive, sometimes creating strange arabesques of light, or reticulations of shadow in the backgrounds for graphic interest. He had a penchant for dark and half shaded prints. While he published in national magazines frequently in the 1920s, he reproduced images lack the impact of the original prints which are among the strangest and most compelling of the period.” © David S. Shields http://broadway.cas.sc.edu/index.php...ographer&id=22 "Recent studies of the celebrity photographer have virtually ignored the work of Orval Hixon. The studios wanted him out there but he refused.....Hixon by contrast stayed in the Midwest. The celebrities he photographed came to him in Kansas City - something of a tribute in itself. And unlike these other notables Hixon did not confine himself to celebrity portraiture. He lent to the faces of the street, so to speak, the same sensitivity and burnished touch that he lavished on the stage and screen greats like Theda Bara and Wallace Reed... ...Orval Hixon's work, particularly the celebrity photographs of 1918 to 1930, reveal the fruits of this theatrical tradition in portraiture. He has shown me the glass negatives dating back to that time. They have been carefully worked over with the artist's brush and etching tool and pencil. The plate for him was only so much raw material with which he could work. These plates, old and now fragile, are paintings in themselves, ghostly images in negative possessing the haunting quality of music half-remembered. They demonstrate the elusive union of the artist's brush and the mechanical fidelity of the plate. All of which accounts for the unique mixture of dream and reality in Hixon's best work.... ...His memories are not reveries lost in nostalgic haze, but rather accounts of expeditions with Valeska Surratt to find the right kind of wildflower for a sitting, a spaghetti dinner home cooked for him by Fanny Brice, a sitting with a young kid from Olathe, Kansas by the name of Buddy Rogers who wanted to go to Hollywood--and did. And so it went..." © John Tibbetts American Classic Screen Magazine-Vol Two No 4-1978) http://www.orvalhixon.com/biography.html James Hargis Connelly Time Period: 1916-1940 Location: Kansas City, Chicago “Despite learning the greater part of his art from an adventurous experimentalist in imagery, Orval Hixon, James Hargis Connelly cultivated a straight style of portraiture. A specialist in female headshots, usually presented with a focal point a little above the sitter's brow line, half length portraits and full figure likenesses were relatively rare in his oeuvre. A masterful retoucher, all of his heads are free of blemishes, well-disposed in the pictorial field, and lit to give a richly tone three-dimensional relief.” © David S. Shields http://broadway.cas.sc.edu/index.php...ographer&id=78 Adele Astaire maybe Barbara Stanwyck Bessie McCoy Davis Beth Beri maybe Denishawn_Lillian Powell, Charlotte Brendel, Grace McCrea, Irene Pryor, Claire Niles, ca 1918 Edna Wallace Hopper Joan Crawford June Eldridge Lillian Lane Marjorie Gateson Pauline Frederick Ruth St Denis and Ted Shawn in Tillers of the Soil, 1916 Ruth St Denis Valeska Suratt Zoe Barnett Last edited by Wendigo; July 25th, 2020 at 03:25 PM.. Reason: removed dead images

October 29th, 2015, 11:48 AM	#2
Glamourtog Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Home Counties Posts: 2,507 Thanks: 9,886 Thanked 94,788 Times in 2,567 Posts	Ziegfeld Follies Flapper Tot Qualters Orval Hixon Modern Dance Photograph Ruth St Denis Orientalist 1917 __________________ Always happy to hear from fellow photographers and vintage glamour collectors .