Photography
© The Estate of Clarence Sinclair Bull Clarence Sinclair Bull (May,22,1896-June,8 1979) was born in Michigan but spent most of his life in Hollywood where he died in 1979. He was hired by movie mogul Sam Goldwyn in 1920 to photograph publicity stills of the studio's stars. Four years later, when M
etro-Goldwyn-Mayer was founded, Bull was appointed as the head of their stills department where he remained throughout his career (nearly forty years). During that time he took portraits of the most celebrated Hollywood film stars, however, he is particularly known for his photographs for Garbo wh
o was almost exclusively photographed by Bull from 1926 to 1941. From The Kiss until Two-Faced Woman in 1941, Bull was to take all Garbo's portraits with the exception of one film in 1930, Romance. George Hurrell, who came to MGM in that year, took these portraits. Bull was the ideal collaborator fo
r this sensitive soul, Garbo. Clarence Sinclair Bull, along with Hurrell, virtually invented celebrity portraiture as we know it today, capturing with rare artistry a breathtaking roster of stars in brilliant and often surprising ways. His magical and dream-like photographs became the classic imag
es of Hollywood portrait photography, instrumental in fixing the essential look of a star and in setting standards of beauty male and female - to this day. Bull's days at MGM included 200 of his enduring portraits of such legendary film stars as Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Hedy
Lamarr, Gary Cooper, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivian Leigh, Spencer Tracy, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, and, of course, Greta Garbo. Winner of four Academy still photography exhibition awards, Clarence Sinclair Bull was born in Sun River, Montana in 1896 and studied with the great Western painter Charles Mar
ion Russell. His early interest in photography took him to Hollywood in 1918 where he was hired as an assistant cameraman at Metro Pictures. He shot stills of the stars during the production breaks, and when Goldwyn merged with Metro in 1924, he became head of the MGM stills department, and remaine
d at MGM for the rest of his career. Though Bull was experienced in every branch of his department, from lighting to printing and retouching, he is best-known for his remarkable portraits of Hollywood stars, especially of Greta Garbo. Clarence Sinclair Bull died in 1979. One of Bull's many useful
innovations was to devise and patent a negative numbering procedure. He set up a system whereby the name of the photographer, the date of the photograph, and the department for which it was taken would be recorded on the side of each 8" x 10" negative. There's a wonderful book about his life "The M
an Who Shot Garbo: The Hollywood Photographs of Clarence Sinclair Bull." by Terrence Pepper and John Kobal. Released by Simon & Schuster, New York 1989.
------------------- Please, visit http://www.garboforever.com dedicated to the great Greta Garbo, Particularly http://www.garboforever.com/Garbo_Portraits-06.htm to see Mr. Bull's wonderful collection of photographs and biography. Please, visit http://www.hurrellphotos.com/default.asp?ID=48 t
here's a nice collection of his photos too. http://www.hurrellphotos.com/default.asp?id=4 ¶m=&data=&sort=TblProducts.Photographer&ResultsPerPage=10&pagenum=1
Please, visit Pop Art Iconix http://pop-arts.com/ArtGallery/Results_Artist.asp?Artist=51 Please, visit Bert Christensen's Cyberspace http://bertc.com/subthree/i39/index.htm Please, visit this interesting blog dedicated to Greta Garbo http://ciccione.blogs.allocine.fr/ http://es.youtube.com/
watch?v=S5WaKlhmJOQ &NR=1
------------------------ Music -- Love and broken hearts by Wynton Marsalis (feat. Jennifer Sanon) Please, visit the artist's official website http://www.wyntonmarsalis.org/

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