ProfileEdward Henry Molyneux (5 September 1891 in Hampstead, London – 23 March 1974 in Monte Carlo) was a leading British fashion designer whose salon in Paris was in operation from 1919 until 1950. He was characterized as a modernist designer that played with the refinements of couture style, a modernist aesthetic, and the desire to be socially and culturally advanced. BiographyEdward Molyneux was born in London to Justin Molyneux and Lizzy Kenny, of Irish and French Huguenot ancestry. He attended Beaumont College, a Roman Catholic preparatory school. Owing to the death of his father, he dropped out at age 16 to support himself and his mother while pursuing ambitions as a painter and illustrator. Molyneux soon found employment as a sketch artist for the London magazine Smart Set where his drawings of fashionable women attracted the attention of the celebrated couturier Lucile (in private life Lady Duff Gordon). She hired him as a sketcher in her London salon in 1910 and by the end of the following year had promoted him to assistant designer at her Paris branch. Working for Lucile in London, Paris and New York until the outbreak of World War I, Molyneux joined the British Army's Duke of Wellington regiment with which he fought in the Battle of Arras, attaining the rank of captain but losing the sight in one eye. He returned to work for Lucile after being invalided out of the war but a disagreement with her resulted in his termination in 1919. Molyneux opened his own fashion house in Paris at 14 rue Royale in November 1919 (later, 5 rue Royale). Foreign Office diplomat Harold Nicolson, with whom he had a relation, helped finance the opening of Edward Molyneux's first Paris salon. Although married to writer Vita Sackville-West, Nicolson was open with her about his affairs, including his fling with Molyneux. In 1923 Edward Molyneux married (Jessie) Muriel Dunsmuir (1890–1951), one of eight daughters of the Hon. James Dunsmuir, Premier of British Columbia. They divorced in 1924. But Molyneux's business went well. His Paris salon expanded in the next years, first to Monte Carlo in 1925, then to Cannes in 1927, and then to London in 1932. He quickly became known for an impeccably refined simplicity. Molyneux was, as historian Caroline Milbank wrote, "the designer to whom a fashionable woman would turn if she wanted to be absolutely right without being utterly predictable in the Twenties and Thirties." Frowning on superfluous decoration, he regularly dressed European royals, including Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent. In 1934, he designed the wedding dress Princess Marina who was to be married on 29 November of that year to Prince George, Duke of Kent. The wedding dress was in white and silver silk brocade which featured "sheath silhouette, a draped cowl neckline, trumpet sleeves, and a wide train." The wedding of Prince George and Princess Marina was the first royal wedding ceremony to be broadcast by wireless locally and abroad to other nations, which greatly increased Molyneux's fame as well. Princess Marina now Duchess of Kent would continue to be his client, and many actresses like Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Gertrude Lawrence, Margaret Leighton, and Vivien Leigh also wore his designs. His Proteges included future couturiers Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain, and he was friends with playwright Noël Coward. During World War II, he moved his firm to London for the duration of the conflict and returned to Paris in 1946. Retiring in 1950, Molyneux left his fashion house in the hands of Jacques Griffe. He resumed designing in 1964, opening Studio Molyneux, a high quality ready-to-wear line that received mixed reviews. During this period Time magazine described him as "the Parisian equivalent of Manhattan's Mainbocher, a classicist devoted to the soft look and tailored line." He retired again in 1969, but Studio Molyneux continued under the direction of his cousin John Tullis until it closed in 1977. The Molyneux trademark is owned by French company Parfums Berdoues, and though the fashion component of the firm remains dormant, the firm still produces scents, such as Captain (1975), Quartz (1978), Le Chic, Vivre, I Love You and Quartz Pure Red (2008). Molyneux painted throughout his life, and exhibitions of his paintings were held at the Galerie Weill in Paris (between 1950–1956) and at the Hammer Galleries in New York (1967) where his painting Carnations in Vase was purchased by the Duke of Windsor and his wife Duchess of Windsor, and Roses in Glass by Greta Garbo. Molyneux's Uncle, Maj. Edward Mary Joseph Molyneux, during his years in the Himalayan Valley of Kashmir, painted many scenes of the capital city of Srinagar and other areas which inspired him. The paintings were published in a book titled Kashmir accompanied by descriptions of the Valley by Francis Younghusband. Captain Molyneux also amassed an extensive Impressionist art collection, including paintings by Picasso, Monet, Manet and 17 by Renoir. They were sold as a lot to Ailsa Mellon Bruce, who bestowed the entire collection on the National Gallery of Art. Further interestWebsites
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ProfileEva Marie Saint (born 4 July 1924) is an American actress. In a career spanning over 75 years, she is best known for starring in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954) and in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). The former won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Upon the death of Olivia de Havilland in 2020, she became the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner and one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. She received Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations for A Hatful of Rain (1957) and won a Primetime Emmy Award for the television miniseries People Like Us (1990). BiographyEva Marie Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Quaker parents. She studied acting at Bowling Green State University. During this time she played the lead role in a production of Personal Appearance. She was an active member in the theater honorary fraternity, Theta Alpha Phi, and served as record keeper of the student council in 1944. Saint's introduction to television began as an NBC page. In the late 1940s, she continued to make her living by extensive work in radio and television. She appeared in a 1947 Life Magazine special about television, and also in a 1949 feature Life article about her as a struggling actress earning minimum amounts from early TV while trying to make ends meet in New York City. In 1953, she won the Drama Critics Award for her Broadway stage role in the play The Trip to Bountiful (1953), in which she co-starred with such formidable actors as Lillian Gish and Jo Van Fleet. In 1955, Saint was nominated for her first Emmy for "Best Actress In A Single Performance"for playing the young mistress of middle-aged E. G. Marshall in Middle of the Night. She won another Emmy nomination for the 1955 television musical version of Our Town, in which she do-starred with Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra. Her success and acclaim in TV productions were of such a high level that "One slightly hyperbolic primordial TV critic dubbed her 'the Helen Hayes of television.'" Saint made her feature film debut in On the Waterfront (1954), starring Marlon Brando and directed by Elia Kazan—a performance for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and also a British Academy of Film and Television Award nomination for "Most Promising Newcomer." The film was a major success and launched Saint's movie career. She received $7,500 for the role. Three years later, Eva Marie Saint received a nomination for the "Best Foreign Actress" award from the British Academy of Film and Television for her performance in A Hatful of Rain, the pioneering drug-addiction drama released in 1957. "Short hair gives Eva a more exotic look, in keeping with her role of the glamorous woman of my story. I wanted her dressed like a kept woman—smart, simple, subtle and quiet. In other words, anything but the bangles and beads type." But it is the femme fatale role she played in North by Northwest (1959) with Cary Grant and James Mason that makes her international star. The film’s director Alfred Hitchcock's cut Saint's waist-length blonde hair for the first time in her career, which gained lots of publicity. Hitchcock explained at the time, "Short hair gives Eva a more exotic look, in keeping with her role of the glamorous woman of my story. I wanted her dressed like a kept woman—smart, simple, subtle and quiet. In other words, anything but the bangles and beads type." The director also worked with Saint to make her voice lower and huskier, and personally chose costumes for her during a shopping trip to Bergdorf Goodman in New York City. North by Northwest became a box-office hit, a suspense classic and an influence on spy films for decades. The film ranks number forty on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time. Although North by Northwest might have propelled her to the top ranks of stardom, Eva Marie Saint chose to limit her film work in order to spend time with her husband, producer and director Jeffrey Haydenwith whom she married on October 28, 1951, and their two children. In the 1960s, Saint continued to distinguish herself in both high-profile and offbeat pictures, such as Exodus (1960), a historical drama about the founding of the state of Israel in which she starred with Paul Newman; Or the melodrama The Sandpiper directed by Vincente Minnelli, in which she appeared with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Because of the mostly second-rate film roles that came her way in the 1970s, Saint returned to television and the stage. She received an Emmy nomination for the 1977 miniseries How The West Was Won and a 1978 Emmy nomination for Taxi!!!. After receiving five nominations, she won her first Emmy Award for the 1990 miniseries People Like Us. She was presented one of the Golden Boot Awards in 2007 for her contributions to western cinema. On December 24, 2016, Eva Marie Saint’s husband Jeffrey Hayden died at the age of 90. They were married for 65 years. Upon the death of Olivia de Havilland in 2020, Eva Marie Saint became the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner and one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Further interestArticles
Erwin Blumenfeld (geboren 26. Januar 1897 in Berlin; gestorben 4. Juli 1969 in Rom) war ein Fotograf deutsch-jüdischer Herkunft und in den 1940er und 1950er Jahren einer der weltweit gefragtesten Porträt- und Modefotografen.
Erwin Blumenfeld (26 January 1897 – 4 July 1969) was an American photographer of German origin. He was born in Berlin, and in 1941 emigrated to the United States, where he soon became a successful and well-paid fashion photographer, working as a free-lancer for Harper's Bazaar, Life and American Vogue. His personal photographic work showed the influence of Dadaism and Surrealism; his two main areas of interest were death and women. He was expert in laboratory work, and experimented with photographic techniques such as distortion, multiple exposure, photo-montage and solarisation.
Biography
Blumenfeld was born in Berlin on 26 January 1897. As a young man he worked in the clothes trade and wrote poetry.
In 1918 he went to Amsterdam, where he came into contact with Paul Citroen and Georg Grosz. In 1933 he made a photomontage showing Hitler as a skull with a swastika on its forehead; this image was later used in Allied propaganda material in 1943. In 1921, he married Lena Citroen, with whom he had three children. In 1922 he started a leather goods shop, which failed in 1935.He moved to Paris, where in 1936 he set up as a photographer and did free-lance work for French Vogue.
After the outbreak of the Second World War he was placed in an internment camp; in 1941 he was able to emigrate to the United States. There he soon became a successful and well-paid fashion photographer, and worked as a free-lancer for Harper's Bazaar, Life and American Vogue.
Ervin Blumenfeld died in Rome on 4 July 1969.
Further interest
Books
Blumenfeld started working on Blumenfeld: Meine 100 Besten Fotos in 1955; it was eventually published in 1979; an English translation, Blumenfeld: My One Hundred Best Photos, was published in New York in 1981.
Another autobiographical work was published in German as Einbildungsroman by Eichborn Verlag in 1998, and in English as Eye to I: The Autobiography of a Photographer by Thames and Hudson in 1999
Videos
Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969). Photographies, dessins et photomontages
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