1. Early life and background

2. Arts career

3. Photography career

4. Historic preservation work

5. Later life

6. References

To adjust the style, try emphasisizing the professional career over the personal life, rewducing name-dropping (though some, like Warhol, are clearly relevant) , and avoiding one-sentence paragraphs. |u=Smalljones|ns=118|decliner=DGG|declinets=20181206045817|ts=20181109211820}}

Otto Fenn, Jr., (February 21, 1913 - February 5, 1993).^[1] was an American photographer known for his fashion photography, portraits of personalities, architectural interiors and food photography.

Early life and background

Otto Fenn was born in New York City. He grew up in Lincoln Park, New Jersey where his parents, who were actors, moved to be closer to movie industry town of Fort Lee, New Jersey. ^[2][3]

His father, Otto Fenn, Sr., acted and performed as a stunt man in early movies and at the New York Hippodrome. When Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932, he was employed as the theater's electrician.^[4] His mother, Estelle Dupree Fenn, toured with a light opera company and appeared at the New York Hippodrome as an actress, high diver and contralto opera singer.^[5] According to Kuhn, Fenn, Jr. and his three siblings, "put on amateur shows... using lighting equipment their father designed for the movies and making their own sets."^[6]. Otto Fenn carried his family habit and love of performance into adulthood.^{[7] [8]}

Fenn attended the New York School of Design (now called the New York School of Interior Design) from 1931 to 1935 where he studied painting and design supplemented with studies of scenic design and window-display.^[9][10]

Arts career

After graduating from art school, Otto Fenn pursued a career in the arts. He was hired by French-American sculptor Pierre Bourdelle to be his artist assistant.^[11] Fenn worked with Bourdelle on his large-scale bas-relief sculptures at the Texas Centennial Exposition in Fair Park, Dallas 1936; the Baylor College Medical Alumni Library, Dallas 1937; and on murals for the Foods North Building at the 1939 New York World's Fair.^[12] In 1940, Fenn installed Bourdelle's "Pageantry of States", 26 linoleum murals in the main dining room of the transatlantic ocean liner S.S. America, under construction in Newport News, Virginia.^[13][14][15]

In the summers of 1938-1940, Fenn was also employed as Art Director for The Barnstormers, Francis Grover Cleveland's summer stock theater in Tamworth, New Hampshire.^[16]

While Fenn was working as an artist's assistant and set designer, his older brother, Gene Fenn, was working as the assistant to Harper's Bazaar fashion photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe. During that period, Otto Fenn had opportunities to help his brother paint backdrops and create lighting for fashion sittings. Louise Dahl-Wolfe asked Otto Fenn to become her assistant in 1941 after Gene Fenn enlisted in the US Army.^[17]

Photography career

Fenn worked at Harper's Bazaar for four years as Louise Dahl-Wolfe's assistant.^[18] While working with Dahl-Wolfe, Fenn became interested in having a career in photography. ^[19] In the spring of 1946, she took Fenn to Paris with her and Harper's Bazaar editor Carmel Snow to photograph the first haute couture collections after the end of WW II. Before returning to New York, Fenn worked for six months as a staff photographer for Harper's Bazaar Paris. Back in New York, Fenn freelanced for Dahl-Wolfe and assisted George Hoyningen Huene at Harper's Bazaar before opening his first studio in 1948.^[20][21]

Fenn's studio was located in the Graybar Building at 480 Lexington Avenue. His editorial fashion photographs appeared in Town and Country magazine.^[22] Fenn's commercial fashion photographs were being published in The New Yorker, Town and Country, Charm, and Harper's Bazaar. ^[23] By 1950, Harry Rodman, director of advertising for Lord & Taylor department store,^[24] had hired Fenn for the Lord & Taylor commercial fashion photography account.^[25] Dorothy Shaver, Lord & Taylor's president, was promoting the work of American fashion designers with her American Look program.^[26] As part of the advertising campaign, one of Fenn's first photographs for Lord & Taylor shows fashion model Tedi Thurman wearing a Gracette dress by American designer Anne Fogarty. The ad appeared in the October 1950 issue of Charm magazine.^[27]

Fenn was also a talented portraitist.^[28] Some of his early portraits of personalities include artist Jean Cocteau, author Gore Vidal, actresses Mae West and Cloris Leachman, actors Cantinflas, Leo Coleman and Sid Cesar, novelist/playwright William Saroyan, costume designer Willa Kim and actor/dancer Ray Bolger.^[29][30][31]

In 1952, Fenn moved into a spacious studio at 132 E. 58th Street, a mid-town Manhattan location that formerly housed the nightclub, Cafe Society Uptown. It was set up with two professional studio areas which frequently were in use by both Fenn and his fashion industry colleagues.^[32]

The Otto Fenn Studio became a social gathering place for Fenn's friends and colleagues. The young artist Andy Warhol stopped by frequently. Warhol and Fenn met in 1951.^[33] Throughout the 1950's they became creative collaborators. Warhol posed for Fenn portraits at the studio. Fenn experimented with projections of Warhol drawings of flowers and butterflies onto the faces of models. Warhol drew backgrounds for Fenn's fashion sittings and created drawings from Fenn portraits, including a series of drawings after Fenn's self-portraits in drag.^{[34][35] [36]} Warhol made professional and personal contacts through Fenn including Dudley Huppler, ^[37] Willa Kim, ^[38], Bill Cecil,^[39] and Bob Crewe. ^[40] Between 1952 and 1953, Fenn and his friends staged an all-male dramatization of the 1936 George Cukor film, Camille, at the Fenn studio and in the resort community, Cherry Grove, New York on Fire Island.^[41] Warhol responded by mailing Fenn a series of post card film stills of Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor in the original film, collaged with speech bubbles.^[42]

In 1959, Fenn began publishing photographs of room interiors in addition to commercial fashion. His photograph of the apartment of musician Bob Crewe, was published on the cover of the May 1959 issue of House and Garden magazine.^[43] The following year, his photograph of the living room of set designer Bill Cecil was published on the May 1960 cover of House and Garden.^[44] Fenn created the Faulconer/Fenn partnership with still life painter, Mary Faulconer, as his stylist and began doing editorial photography of food and interiors. ^[45] Their first photograph, an experimental trompe l'oeil still life, was purchased by House Beautiful for the cover of their November 1962 issue. ^[46] Over the next decade the Faulconer/Fenn partnership's home interiors, architectural design and food photographs would appear regularly in House Beautiful, House and Garden, Woman's Day, Look magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies Home Journal, Holiday and This Week Magazine.^{[47] [48] [49]} Fenn continued to do commercial photography, independent of his editorial photography with Mary Faulconer, including work as a style consultant on the TV commercials for Van Pragg Productions. ^[50]

Historic preservation work

In 1961, Fenn and his partner, John Krug, purchased an historic 17th century house in the Village of Sag Harbor on Long Island, New York.^[51] The house was named after a former owner with an interesting history, ^[52] the whaling captain David Hand. Fenn spent his weekends restoring the house and researching its history.^[53] Fenn's interest in the history of his own house expanded into a broader interest in the history and architecture of Sag Harbor and the surrounding area. ^[54] In 1972, he was appointed as a technical advisor to the newly formed Sag Harbor Historic Preservation Commission. The seven-member committee was appointed by the Village Board to develop a plan to protect the historic character and architecture of Sag Harbor Village. ^[55] The book, Sag Harbor Past, Present and Future by Robert H. Pine was published in 1973 with Fenn's photographs of every historic structure in Sag Harbor Village.^[56] The Sag Harbor Village District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in June 1973. An article in the Sag Harbor Express notes, " According to Mr.[Robert H.] Pine...Otto Fenn was an instigator of this accomplishment."^[57]

Later life

Otto Fenn moved permanently to Sag Harbor in 1975.^[58] He remained involved in historic preservation as an organizer of the Sag Harbor Historic House Tour for 18 years;^[59] providing restoration advice and assistance to local home owners; ^[60][61] lecturing on the history of the region; and as a collector of historic whaling photographs, scrimshaw and whaling artifacts^[62][63] Like the Fenn Studio, the antique shop became a social gathering place^[64]. East Hampton journalist Dan Rattiner wrote, "His [Otto Fenn's] antique shop is a forum for far ranging discussion. Customers and friends find Otto witty and erudite on a wide range of subjects from politics to commercial photography...".^[65]

Otto Fenn died February 5, 1993 in Sag Harbor, New York.^[66]

References

• Mir Said Alii Hamadoni
• Mirsaid Sultangaliev
• Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev
• Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani
• Mir Sayyid ‘Ali Hamadhani
• Mir Shahdad Jo Qubo
• Mir Shahnawaz Bhutto
• Mirsharai Upazila
• Mirsha Serrano
• Mir Sher Mohammad Marri
• Mir Sher Muhammad Talpur
• Mirsini Beach
• Mirsini Beach, Mirsini, Greece
• Mirsini (disambiguation)
• Mirsini, Greece
• Mirsk
• Mirsk Commune
• Mirsky Castle
• Mir Square
• MIR submarine
• Mir (submersible)
• Mir-Susne-Hum
• Mirsíni
• Mirsíni, Greece
• Mirta Cerra Herrera