Hurrell Hollywood: Photographs 1928-1990

Rating:
Summary: What Hollywood glamour was all about
Review: Perusing this coffee-table volume is as close as most of us will get to flipping through a stack of George Hurrell's own prints. There is virtually no text, just a brief chronology of the photographer's life and career. But before reaching that, you will see examples from 62 years of his work represented in 140 12-1/4 by 9-5/8-inch duotone plates, many of them shots that created the world's image of Hollywood in the 30's and 40's. The book proceeds chronologically, so that toward the end are post-WWII shots revealing that not even Hurrell could evoke glamour without the right subjects and environment. And the last plate in the book is a Dutch angle of the master himself, still shooting but obviously nearer the end than the beginning. Technically, the book is well printed, with the duotone process enhancing the large dark areas Hurrell loved to create. For my taste, he tended to print his darks too dark and lacking in detail, although his compositions usually supported these big "velvety" areas. However, achieving that look with ink often leads printers to darken the lighter end of the grey scale, too. And in this book, some plates ended up looking a bit muddy. But this is probably a minor quibble for true seekers after Hollywood's lost glamour.