After coming across what I thought was the one and only extant catalogue Hagelstein Brothers ever issued, another one materialized thanks to a bookseller in
Vancouver, WA., the very knowledgeable Kol Shaver of Zephyr Used & Rare
Books.
This one is an earlier catalogue --issued circa 1925. No doubt it was assembled by my grandfather
and amazing that ninety years later it wound up in his grandson's possession. I was acutely aware of family hands across
time while unwrapping the package after I had ordered the catalogue. Could he have imagined something like the
Internet which makes these connections possible?
Clearly, the firm had left its portrait photography
behind, soon after departing its original studio at 142 Bowery and moved to 100
Fifth Avenue in approximately 1915, where it was to remain until the early
1980s at which time its penthouse location became prohibitively expensive. It was then my father and uncle moved the
entire operation to Long Island City and to oversee the company’s demise only a
few years later.
Would my father, grandfather, or great-grandfather
recognize those buildings today, with 142 Bowery and 100 Fifth Avenue becoming
gentrified? At least the 20 story 100
Fifth Avenue, built in 1906, is still recognizable, although repurposed for
high end businesses with “new, modern lobbies that create an edgy, innovative
look designed to appeal to a new generation of corporate entrepreneurs.” The building’s French Gothic façade remains.
Alas, 142 Bowery, the birthplace of the photography
studio, was recently sold with its sister building 140 Bowery, for $22 million!!! The plan is to tear them down, probably to
create high-end condos. These are among
the few remaining Federal period buildings in the area.
I fondly remember working at 100 Fifth Avenue as a
teenager during the summers, the office, the shipping room, the studio, the
black and white and color darkrooms, and the printing facilities for producing
mostly glossies used for salesmen’s samples. After its success as a portrait
photography studio, it reinvented itself as a “Fine Arts” photography
studio. This came on the heels of the
success in being the official photographer of the 1913 Armory Show which brought Modern Art to America.
I think Kol was delighted to find the information I had
posted and naturally a potential buyer for this 1925 catalogue. He also suspected I would be the kind of
buyer who would treat it with the proper reverence. As he said, “bravo for being able to purchase
and preserve it, as far too many of these catalogues are being taken apart and
pieced about by eBay sellers, and other photographic purveyors.” Spoken as a true antiquarian, he later added: “I
feel like I’m in a constant race with those breaking up these wonderful
artifacts, and archives.”
My ultimate intention is to donate them to a museum
photographic collection, so they can no longer be pulled apart and are
available to researchers for years to come.
They are both in excellent condition.
The catalogue which I previously wrote about might be the more
interesting one because of its diversity, although this catalogue, which
specifically covers only fine furniture, might be more revealing of the times,
the roaring twenties, perhaps the furniture of the Great Gatsby (the novel was
written at about the same time as the catalogue). Zephyr’s description of the furniture
pictured here is impeccable, so I quote it in its entirety:
[JAZZ AGE FURNITURE
-- PHOTO CATALOGUE]. [HAGELSTEIN, Harry P.] [Excellent salesman sample photo catalogue
with over 100 original silver gelatin photos of quality furnishings for 1920s
New York homes, most of them with measurements and product number in lower
fore-edge]. [New York: Hagelstein
Brothers Photographers, ca. 1925].
Oblong 4to. 11.5 x 8.25 in. 117 original silver gelatin photos, mounted
on linen hinges, most w/ product number and negative number in upper, or lower
margins, many with pencil annotations on versos. Contemporary simulated black
leather post-binder, screw posts at gutter margin, rounded corners, gilt
stamping of Photographers studio on front pastedown (slight shelfwear), NF
copy.
First edition of this
lavishly illustrated Jazz Age furniture catalogue, filled with original
photographs of styles inspired by designs from Sheraton, Heppelwhite,
Chippendale, Renaissance Revival, Jacobean Style, and many others. Although
unidentified, the broad product line, the quality of the furniture, the
available styles, and even some of the product numbers are identical to the
furniture produced by Berkey & Gay who during the Roaring 20s were one of
the largest manufacturers of fine furniture in the world. Berkey & Gay
concentrated on Elizabethan, Renaissance, some American Revival Federalist
Styles, and even English Regency, during this era, incorporating a wide variety
of woods, and especially dark mahoganies and walnuts.
This is a large catalogue with more than 100 prints, so I
include representative samples of them here, in the order in which they
appear. Perhaps another catalogue will
turn up; I doubt it. All in all, it’s a
remarkable history of a studio which was established the year after the end of
the civil war by my great grandfather and his brother and ended 120 years later
when my father died and my Uncle Philip could no longer carry the business
forward. It evolved from portrait
photography, to photography of fine arts and furniture, to what it later billed
itself as “commercial and illustrative photography.”
In photographing the contents of this 1925 catalogue I
did not unfasten the pages in an effort to avoid any damage, so some of the
photos might seem slightly distorted.
I’m hoping the New York Public Library Photographic Collection or a
similar repository will accept this and the other Hagelstein Brothers materials
I have in my possession once I have them organized so they may be viewed there
for generations to come.
