Showing posts with label M.I. Boris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label M.I. Boris. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Louise Brooks postcard

Wowza, what a lovely vintage Louise Brooks postcard, from Italy. The portrait is by M.I. Boris.


Monday, March 7, 2011

A portrait of Louise Brooks, by M.I. Boris

A portrait of Louise Brooks, by M.I. Boris

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Back in the USSR

This Soviet era Louise Brooks postcard is currently for sale on eBay. The seller, who lives in Poland, states the postkarte is from 1928. (The portrait, incidentally, is by M.I. Boris, a NYC-based photographer who once was the, or a, court photographer to the Austro-Hungarian Empire prior to WWI. Or at least that's what his son once told me. Boris took this image in 1925.)

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Back in the USSR

I have seen this before - but here it is again. A scarce 1928 Soviet postcard depicting Louise Brooks. It is currently for sale on eBay.

Ironically (in the political sense), the portrait is by a former court photographer to the Austro-Hungarian empire, M.I. Boris. He fled his homeland around the time of WWI. Eventually, he ended up in New York City, where he came to work as a commercial portrait photographer. That's when this image was taken.

Some 90 years later, I had the chance to meet his son in San Francisco, and he showed me a number of original portraits of film stars taken by his father. There were some of W.C. Fields and two or three of Louise Brooks, including one inscribed to Boris from Brooks which read "To M.I. Boris, a true artist."

I am always impressed when I see something like this postcard or a vintage Japanese magazine cover or a Cuban matchbox featuring the image of Louise Brooks. Her stardom was truly international.

Here is the reverse of the postcard.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

1920's Louise Brooks Cuban Tobacco Card


For sale on eBay, a 1920's tobacco card from Cuba depicting Louise Brooks (identified as "Louise Brook"). Spanish language text on the reverse identifies this card as number 716 in the "Serie Artistica."

Tobacco cards, sometimes also referred to as cigarette cards (or candy cards), were small promotional items packaged along with items like cigarettes or candy.

The image on the card was taken by M.I. Boris. The actress looks especially lovely in this portrait. She was probably no older than 18 or 19 at the time.

Interestingly, Louise Brooks had something of a presence in Cuba. I have managed to look through a few Cuban magazines and newspapers from the 1920s and have run across her image a number of times. Paramount did a good job promoting the actress on the island.

I also own a vintage box of stick matches which features Brooks' image. I've bid on this item. Let's hope I win. Then, at last, the match box will be "reunited" with the cigarette card. (Who knows, maybe the matches once lit a smoke from a package which contained just such a card....)
Powered By Blogger