E C Hoppé was one of the leading photographers in the early days of the 20th century. “The most famous photographer in the world in the 1920s” was one description, but his work was all but forgotten in the post-war period and it is only recently that interest has been revived in this pioneering photographer. Born in Germany, after studying in Vienna, Hoppé moved to London in 1901. Here he met his future wife and settled, working in a bank like his father. Fearing to disappoint his parents, who planned for him to move to the Far East, for two years he arranged for letters to be posted from Shanghai until he revealed that he was living in London.
His life changed when he won £100 in a News Chronicle photographic competition enabling him to set up his own business in Barons Court. Needing funds, he specialised in portraits. His work was soon recognised as modern in feel and he became much sought after. By 1913, he had moved into a 33-room house that had been occupied by John Millais (and was later to be lived in by Francis Bacon) in Kensington, which became a magnet for the rich and famous.
Sitters included the ballet dancer Margot Fonteyn as a young woman, George Bernard Shaw standing in front of his fireplace, its shelves filled with ornaments, a wistful Vaslav Nijinsky complete with highly stylised stage make-up, the American poet Ezra Pound, David Lloyd George and Benito Mussolini. If the sitters would not come to him, then he went to them, most notably to King George V and Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, who was later to become the Queen Mother.
In 1922, Hoppé published the Book of Fair Women, a compilation of photographs of the women he considered to be the most beautiful on earth. It was notable for its multicultural approach as he selected 32 beauties from 24 countries. The book caused controversy by raising philosophical questions about taste and the “human aesthetic”.
Fascinated by all aspects of life in his adopted country, during the 1920s and ’30s, Hoppé left the confines of the studio to take photographs of British street life, capturing the lives of those at opposite end of the social spectrum from the poor to celebrities. These pictures, originally taken with a plate camera, were carefully posed. However, with the advent of the 35mm camera, he was able to stalk the street to take less formal shots with a concealed camera, further exploring the ideas of class. Images include three male bell-ringers, two homeless men in Trafalgar Square during the Depression, sleeping with their boots off their feet, a night watchman, a profession harking back to medieval times, young women in a borstal institute, a shop selling imported skeletons for 10 to 15 guineas, a portrait of a grubby-looking child dressed in a pearly suit, street musicians and the tattoo artist George Burchett.
In 1954, at the age of 76, Hoppé sold his photographic work of the previous forty-seven years to a London picture library, where they were filed by subject with millions of other “stock” pictures. No longer accessible by author, his work all but disappeared. Most of Hoppé’s photographic work – which gained him the reputation as one of Britain’s most influential photographers between 1907 and 1939 – was literally hidden. It is now being identified, affirming him as a photographer whose work reflected the complexity of contemporary life.
Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio & Street continues until 20 May 20
