Dec 14, 2017 - Sale 2465

Sale 2465 - Lot 101

Price Realized: $ 10,312
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
W. SMITHSON BROADHEAD.
Young Woman with Kodak Camera. Illustration of a carefree young woman in striped pinafore, photographing the outdoors with her Kodak Premo camera, circa 1912. Oil on canvas. 800x527 mm; 31 1/2x20 3/4 inches, framed to 36x26 inches. Signed in lower right image. Linen-backed. Provenance: Illustration House, 2003; thence to a private collection in Connecticut.

Additional Details

In 1893, at the Chicago World's Fair, George Eastman introduced the "Kodak Girl" as the icon of the new Kodak camera's ad campaign. Often illustrated in a blue and white striped ensemble in British ads (the American outfits being more varied), the Kodak Girl served to promote the early cameras as accessible, portable, and easy to use for amateur photographers. Images like this one represent a cultural shift from a more exclusive era of studio photography to the mass-marketing of cameras to the broader population. The red bellows, as seen here, were discontinued and switched to black after August of 1912.