A portrait by Alfred Stieglitz

[cali]

This is a portrait of the woman I was named for. I just recently discovered it. She was the daughter of Stieglitz' best friend, the painter Frank Simon Herrmann and a good friend of Georgia O'Keefe's later in her life. Eva was 19 when he took this picture.

https://www.google.com/search?q=alfred+stieglitz+eva+herrmann+lacma&tbm=isch&imgil=alzjBeWgCYFkeM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcQ-hPm250v0wBBVBu2eBBenyDAuwFCDf9HuKGpQ7gSgbi9ZT6eiZw%253B560%253B721%253BDbH2bDNtU1-a7M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252F%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.pinterest.com%252Fpin%252F180355160050009223%252F%3B560%3B721

Eva was some kind of double cousin to me through my mother. On the maternal side of my family cousins married cousins going back several generations. My mother always blamed her retinitis pigmentosa on that. My grandparents were 2nd cousins.

She was a fascinating woman and there is, I think, such determination captured in this photograph. Eva was an artist and drew caricatures of famous writers and others. Here is a link to one she did of her good friend Aldous Huxley:

http://www.unz.org/Pub/Bookman-1932may-00184

I just think it's neat that this relative of mine who I was named after and of who I have vivid memories, was photographed by Stieglitz.

[alfredo]

1. Too cool. Both my wife and I were artist models in our younger days.

I sat for Gloria Thomas http://gloria-thomas.com/portfolio1.htm

My wife sat for John Regis Tuska http://finearteditions.net/john-tuska/

It's a way one can gain a chance for immortality. Eva earned her chance at immortality.

[cali]

2. actually, she's a forgotten sort, but if she earned any immortality it

was by her own doing. she was the center of such expats as Huxley, Mann, Isherwood, Isherwood, Auden and Bedford, first in Sanary-sur-Mer in Provence and later in the L.A. Hills.

http://kuenste-im-exil.de/KIE/Content/EN/Persons/herrmann-eva-en.html

Loved the links.

[alfredo]

3. I recognise her work.

Here's another local artist. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-browning/henry-faulkner-lost-artis_b_4356463.html

Henry was Tennessee Williams' lover. But we knew him as a wild man artist. My wife knew him, I didn't get to know him before his tragic death.

He lived down the street from us. Every now and then you could hear his beautiful falsetto voice singing some aria.