ALFRED CHENEY JOHNSTON 1885-1971 - Lot 5

ALFRED CHENEY JOHNSTON 1885-1971 Showgirl, Ziegfeld Follies, ca.1920. Photograph. Vintage silver print, author's stamp on back. Upper right corner slightly marked. 33.6 x 22.4 cm Alfred Cheney Johnston(1885 - 1971) began his artistic career as an illustrator. He studied painting at the National Academy of Design in New York and worked under his mentor Charles Dana Gibson. During his studies, he began experimenting with photography, taking portraits of friends and applying painting techniques to this new medium. In 1917, Johnston was hired as a photographer by the famous New York theater producer Florenz Ziegfeld. For over fifteen years, he photographed the dancers of the Ziegfeld Follies in their extravagant stage costumes, individually or in small groups. At the same time, he maintained his commercial studio, photographing hundreds of actors and actresses. In 1960, AC Johnston donated 245 photographs - mostly nudes and semi-nudes of Follies dancers - as well as actors and actresses from the 20s and 30s, to the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Much of his work was found after his death on his farm in Oxford, Connecticut, where he had lived since 1940.