Louise Brooks and John Held, Jr.: A Dual Discovery
By Michael Smith
Back
in 1995 during my junior year of high school I was sitting in History
class learning about the 1920's. In the chapter of our textbook
dedicated to the Prohibition Era there was an illustration that really
caught my fancy, and I was fascinated by the style of the men and women
in the drawing. The caption said the name of the artist but
unfortunately I didn't write it down and it escaped my memory for the
next few years.
Fast forward to 1999: I am
taking an illustration class in college and the professor tells us to
choose any illustrator we want, past or present, and make an
illustration in his or her style. I immediately knew who I would pick:
the artist who created that drawing in my junior year high school
History class textbook, but the problem was I didn't remember his name;
however, I knew the internet could help me.
After
several computer-lab hours of searching terms like "1920's
illustrators", "1920's cartoonists", and "1920's artists" on pre-Google
era search engines that would be considered primitive today, I finally
rediscovered the name of the artist I had originally discovered four
years earlier: John Held, Jr.
But that wasn't the only thing I came across.
During
my search through countless websites dedicated to 1920's culture, I saw
a photo of an absolutely gorgeous girl with a perfectly trimmed jet
black bob. Her name was Louise Brooks and after doing a separate search
for information on her, I learned she was a dancer and silent-film
actress in the 20's and early 30's. I was immediately smitten. Wanting
to see more pictures, I visited the Louise Brooks Society website for
the very first time. As I was browsing the photos, my professor walked
behind me, stopped dead in his tracks, and exclaimed, "Wow, Michael, she
is *beautiful*!!!" with much emphasis on the word beautiful. I had
been gazing wide-eyed at a portrait of Louise and due to my instructor's
reaction I could tell she was something special, still making men stare
all these years later.
About a month went by
and I took a trip to New York City with the student newspaper staff at
my college. Someone said they were going to go check out an old book
store named Gotham Book Mart so I decided to tag along. We arrived at
the store, and since my fellow staff member said this place had been
there for decades and decades, I asked the girl at the counter if they
had anything by John Held, Jr. (since I also knew he worked in the city
during his prime.) She didn't know the name and wasn't sure (I don't
think they even had a computer to search their inventory) but she asked
me what subject it would be and I told her he was an artist that did
cartooning and illustration. So she pointed me towards a shelf that had
comic strip related books on it and that was that.
I
walked over to the shelf, and two seconds later a young man (probably a
manager) walks out from the back room and asks me, "Did you just ask if
we had anything by John Held, Jr.?" and I said, "Yeah..." He replies,
"Did you know he designed our sign back in the 20's?" My eyes got huge
and I don't even remember what I said, if anything, but I do remember
immediately running out the door, looking up, and gazing at an original
piece of art by one of my favorite artists from one of my favorite eras
that had been hanging over a New York City sidewalk for seventy-plus
years. (See the attached photo of the sign, I found the photo on the
internet. I don't know who owns the copyright to this photo but I
wanted to include it with my essay to show what the sign looks like.)
What are the odds??? Overall a pretty wild experience.
Part 2: What Louise Means To Me
If
it wasn't for John Held, Jr., I don't know when I would have discovered
Louise. I know I would have stumbled upon her eventually due to my
strong interest in the 20's because she is an icon of the era and any
website or book about the Jazz Age wouldn't be complete without
mentioning her, and it wouldn't be worth looking at without showing her
picture.
Louise is my muse and in 2014 she
inspired me to start a community page on Facebook called Louise Brooks
Fan Club. This page has over 6,000 Likes and gets more and more just
about every day. Since I also post photos of other beautiful actresses,
showgirls, models, artwork, music, and fashion from the Roaring 20's,
Louise Brooks to me is the personification of that decade. Not only is
she "the quintessential flapper" she is also the physical embodiment of
the entire era. Louise is the main focus of my page, tying all my
seemingly-random posts together, making them all on-topic and
appropriate. But most importantly she helped me create a creative
outlet for myself where I can share photos I like, music reviews I've
written, clever captions I come up with, my sense of humor, and my
random thoughts on art and beauty with thousands of people, something
I've wanted ever since I first heard the word "blog". And for that I
will be forever grateful to our beloved Brooksie.
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