Peenie Wallie: Arnold Genthe

May 05, 2008

Arnold Genthe

The National Geographic channel ran a show tonight called The Great Quake. In the show, they mentioned that some of the most famous photographs of the devastation caused by the earthquake and fire of 1906 were taken by Arnold Genthe.

Genthe was a portrait photographer who emigrated from Germany and set up a studio on Nob Hill in San Francisco. WIth his cameras all destroyed by the quake, he went to his local camera dealer and borrowed a 3A Kodak Special camera, stuffed his pockets full of film, and went out and shot scads of photographs of the ruined city.

I wonder if anyone has ever gone back and reshot his photographs in modern times, the way John Fielder went back and reshot William Henry Jackson's photographs from the 1870's in the acclaimed, retrospective photographic essay Colorado, 1870-2000.

Here's one of Genthe's Chinatown photographs on Shorpy.

According to this site, the Library of Congress has more than 16,000 of Arnold Genthe's negatives, lantern slides, and autochromes, and access to these is granted on an appointment basis to those engaged in advanced scholarly or biographical research. Written requests should be directed to the Chief, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540-4730.

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