James Abbe

James Abbe (July 17, 1883 – November 11, 1973) was an American photographer.

Background

James Abbe was born in 1883 in Alfred, Maine. He traveled throughout Europe as a young photojournalist recording the unstable power struggles of the early 20th century. However, he first made a name for himself photographing movie stars in New York, Paris, and London throughout the 1920s and 1930s. His unusual technique of working outside the studio set him apart from other photographers of the period. To make money, Abbe sold his photographs to magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair, which brought his subjects greater fame.

Famous images

After gaining some public attention, Abbe began submitting his work to major publications, including The London Magazine and the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. He also took photographs during the Spanish Civil Warand the Nazis' rise in Germany.

According to a 12 November 2006 San Francisco Chronicle interview with his daughter, Tilly Abbe, he was married three times before he met her mother, and abandoned his third wife and three children to marry Tilly's mother. Tilly was born when her father was 56 years old. A roue and adventurer, James Abbe had a zest for life but, until his later years, no staying power with women.

"His life would make a good movie," his daughter says. In the 1920s and '30s Abbe photographed politicians, stage and film stars -- Hitler and Mussolini, Charlie Chaplin and Josephine Baker -- and scored the biggest coup of his career when he finagled his way into the Kremlin and, according to Miss Tilly, "tricked" Stalin into posing for him. The result: a rare snapshot of the Soviet dictator smiling. His portrait of Joseph Stalin was famously used to stop rumors that the Soviet leader was dead.

"He called his photography 'a ticket' to the world," Tilly says. "It was partly because of him that I became a dancer. In fact, I'm named after a dancer he photographed, Tilly Losch. He loved ballet, and his favorite subject to photograph was Anna Pavlova. I knew how much he loved dancers, and of course it was very important to me to please my father."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/12/LVGT4M82G21.DTL&ao=all#ixzz1kc9PphNq

Books and legacy

Abbe’s book I Photograph Russia was published in 1934. This work includes eighty photographs taken by Abbe.

His son, also named James Abbe, became a photographer who worked for Harper's Bazaar.

References

• Jeffrey, Ian et al. (1997). The Photography Book. London: Phaidon Press Limited. ISBN 0-7148-4488-8