Curtis Moffat, Ms. Greville, circa 1925-1930 – Buy Curtis Moffat prints in the Flashbak Shop.
Photographer Curtis Moffat (1887 – 1949) moved with his wife, the English actress and poet Iris Tree, daughter of the actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, from his native New York to London in the mid-1920s, and in 1925 opened a photography studio in partnership with the British socialite and society photographer Olivia Wyndham (1897-1967). There Moffat made portraits of London’s “Bright Young Things”, the most connected, photogenic, artistic and stylish ‘It’ girls and go-ahead boys, toffs, toffettes and glamorous artists with private means; people like: actress, writer and socialite Diana Cooper (1892-1986), actress Tallulah Bankhead (1902-68), writers Daphne du Maurier (1902-68) and Nancy Cunard (1896-1965), literary brothers Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell (1892-1969 and 1897-1988), and fellow society photographer Cecil Beaton (1904-1980).
Curtis Moffat, Cecil Beaton, circa 1925 – Buy Curtis Moffat prints in the Flashbak Shop.
“A gentle, quiet, easy-going man with velvet eyes and enormous charm, Curtis Moffat was the most Europeanised of Americans. He seemed to be only ‘at home’ in the quietness of his book-filled rooms. But appearances are deceptive; in fact he was the centre of enormous creative activity. Not only did Curtis Moffat run an avant-garde picture gallery, but he was also a talented painter himself, and he filled the nobly appointed rooms of a huge house, 4 Fitzroy Square, with his collections of Chinese objects and African sculpture.”
– Cecil Beaton on Curtis Moffat
Curtis Moffat, Two Women Wearing Swimming Costumes Lying Down With Eyes Closed, circa 1925-1930 – Buy Curtis Moffat prints in the Flashbak Shop.
Dame Gladys Cooper
by Curtis Moffat – chlorobromide print, 1925
Curtis Moffat, Daphne du Maurier, 1925-30 (via)
“Curtis Moffat, whose abstract photographs and huge marble-ized heads were extremely fashionable at this time, was friendly and encouraging, and I was extremely impressed by the flat lighting, or lack of lighting, and the composition, or lack of composition, which he employed. In imitation of his work I hurried home to strip my sisters bare to the shoulders and bring my camera so close to their faces as to almost touch their noses. I, too, bought a great variety of different-textured cardboards and coloured fancy papers on which to mount my Herculean enlargements, but my imitations never possessed the inimitable Curtis Moffat touch.”
– Cecil Beaton on Curtis Moffat
Coco Chanel, c.1925-1930
Portrait de Nancy Cunard – 1926 by Curtis Moffat (via)
Curtis Moffat, Miss Hoffman, circa 1925-1930
Curtis Moffat, Greta Wyndham With Firework and Catherine Wheel, circa 1933-1935. Digital reconstruction from original trichrome carbro process glass negatives. – Buy Curtis Moffat prints in the Flashbak Shop.
Tallulah Bankhead, c.1925-1930 (via)
Iris Tree
by Curtis Moffat, 1923
Curtis Moffat, Ms. Greville, circa 1925-1930
Gelatin silver print.
Buy Curtis Moffat prints in the Flashbak Shop.
See more of this great photographer’s work in the book Curtis Moffat: Silver Society: Experimental Photography and Design, 1923-1935.
Would you like to support Flashbak?
Please consider making a donation to our site. We don't want to rely on ads to bring you the best of visual culture. You can also support us by signing up to our Mailing List. And you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. For great art and culture delivered to your door, visit our shop.
