Robert Wise, “The Haunting”: Film History Series

Robert Wise, “The Haunting”, 1963, Cinematography Davis Boulton, Music Humphrey Searle, Producer Argyle Enterprises, Metro-Golden Mayer

Robert Wise’s 1963 “The Haunting” is a British psychological thriller film, an adaptation of American novelist Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel “The Haunting of Hill House”, that is widely considered one of the best-written ghost stories. This film chronicles the experiences of several people invited by a paranormal investigator to study the ninety-year old Hill House, an allegedly haunted mansion in Massachusetts.

Wise read Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” during the pre-production phase of “West Side Story”, his current project for United Artists. Impressed by the novel, he gave the book to his colleague, screenwriter Nelson Gidding, who had earned an Oscar nomination for his treatment of Wise’s 1958 “I Want to Live!”. Gidding wrote a full- story treatment and later crafted a screenplay which focused primarily on the psychological interactions between psychiatrist John Markway and patient Eleanor Vance. A meeting between Wise, Gidding and Shirley Jackson led to an increased focus on the supernatural aspect which was contained in the original story. It was Jackson who offered the film’s title,“The Haunting”.

Gidding’s screenplay took six months to write. A solitary worker, he did show Robert Wise some of the work as it progressed. Gidding cut the number of characters in the film and shortened the back-story. Most of the supernatural events were kept off-screen and, in order to emphasize the feeling of claustrophobia, the majority of the action was confined to interior spaces. Gidding’s final screenplay was completed just as Wise was finishing his directorial work on “West Side Story”.

Robert Wise presented the finished screenplay to United Artists; however, they declined to take the project. He next offered Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer the project as he still owed the studio one last film under an old contract. MGM accepted the project but would only finance the film for one million dollars, an amount Wise knew was insufficient. Understanding that it would be less expensive to shoot the “The Haunting” in England, he approached Borchamwood Studio, MGM’s British subsidiary. The studio’s support plus the financing and tax breaks through Britain’s film subsidy program, the Eady Levy, enabled Wise to make the film he envisioned.

Wise chose American theater actress Julie Ann Harris to the role of the lead character, the psychologically fragile Eleanor Vance. Stage and screen actress Claire Bloom was selected for the role of psychic Theodora (Theo). Richard Johnson, a Royal Shakespeare Company actor who was already signed with MGM, became the choice for the paranormal investigator, Dr. John Markway. The choice of Bloom and Johnson, in addition to the quality of their acting, enabled Wise to fulfill one of the requirements of the Eady Levy. The role of Luke Samerson, the next heir to Hill House, was given to American actor Russ Tamblyn who, under contract with MGM, had earned an Academy Award nomination for his role in the 1957 film “Peyton Place”.

The exterior shots of Hill House were done on the grounds of Ettington Park (now the Ettington Park Hotel) located in the West Midlands county of Warwickshire. The interior sets, designed by English art director Elliot Scott, were constructed at the Borchamwood Studio. Decorated in a Rococo style, these interior settings were constructed to be brightly lit, without dark corners or recesses. Although most film sets forgo ceilings, all the rooms constructed had ceilings to create a claustrophobic atmosphere. As per contract, “The Haunting” was shot in black and white film; however, Wise also used infra-red film to create a more sinister appearance to the physical structure of Hill House.

Robert Wise understood that which is not seen is more fearful than things people can see. He chose early in the production stage of the film to show little of the supernatural on the screen. Wise and cinematographer Davis Boulton decided to use low-angle shots and employed an anamorphic, wide-angle lens to distort distances. A plan to keep the camera constantly in motion employed unusual horizontal swivels and tracking camera shots during many scenes. To enhanced the acting, a pre-recorded soundtrack of voices and noises was played during the acting of tense scenes. Many of those pre-recorded sounds remained in the film after the final editing.

Wise’s “The Haunting” opened in Los Angeles and New York on the eighteenth of September in 1963 to mixed reception. Although many in the audiences found it frightening, reviews were mixed; many critics gave it a good review but did not think the film was outstanding. Shirley Jackson, after seeing the film at a premier, thought it was a poor movie which altered the plot of the book radically. Since its original release, “The Haunting” has been reappraised and given good reviews, especially regarding its technical quality. Robert Wise was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director due to his work on “The Haunting”.

Notes: In 1990, Ted Turner began his controversial colorizing of black and white motion pictures. While touring Turner’s facilities as a member of the Directors Guild, Wise learned that “The Haunting” was to be colorized. The film has remained in its original black and white format due to Wise’s contract with MGM that specified that the film could only be in black and white.

Front Row Features has a 2023 article by writer Judy Sloane that includes a 1995 conversation between Sloane, Robert Wise and Julie Harris on the filming of “The Haunting”: https://frontrowfeatures.com/features-category-of-interviews-and-spotlights/in-retrospect-robert-wise-and-julie-harris-converge-on-hill-house-33927.html

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Robert Wise, Set of The Haunting”, 1962-63, Gelatin Silver Print, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Archives

Second Insert Image: Davis Boulton, “Julie Harris and Claire Bloom”, 1963, “The Haunting”, Film Still, Director Robert Wise, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Third Insert Image: Davis Boulton, “Clair Bloom, Julie Harris, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn”, 1963, “The Haunting”, Film Still, Director Robert Wise, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Bottom Insert Image: Davis Boulton, “Julie Harris and Richard Johnson”, 1963, “The Haunting”, Film Still, Director Robert Wise, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer

Bernard Guillot

The Photography of Bernard Guillot

Born in the Rhine River city of Basel in 1950, Bernard Guillot was a French photographer and painter who traveled extensively in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. He divided his career primarily between Egypt and the French highland region of Massif Central. Guillot was renowned for his expressive fusion of painting and photography that was heavily influenced by his dual life in those two countries.

Guillot was introduced to painting during his childhood by his mother and his godfather Antoine Mislin, both of whom were Anthroposophists, members of an early twentieth-century religious movement founded by Austrian esoteric Rudolf Steiner. After three years of medical study in Paris, Guillot entered the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts from which he graduated in 1975.

From 1975 to 1977, Bernard Guillot resided in New York City where he began to engage with photography. He created his series “Twelfth Avenue” during this period; this collection of images later became part of the 2010 exhibition “Mixed Use Manhattan”. Throughout his career, Bernard Guillot worked on several series of work in France and Egypt. Between 1977 and 1996 in the French city of Nice, he created a photographic chronicle of his life at a house allegedly haunted by the presence of curator emeritus and poet Claude Fourmet.

In Egypt between 1977 and 2003, Guillot decisively defined both his life and inspiration. In Cairo, he wandered the spaces of the aging Hôtel Maffet Astoria and created a chronicle of photographs which centered on the themes of appearance and disappearance. Guillot revisited the hotel’s rooms every night until that last night when the hotel was finally closed and permanently sealed tight. This succession of images was published by Ides Calendes as “Hôtel Maffet Astoria, Le Caire” in 1999.

In Cairo, Guillot created the series “Cité des Morts (City of the Dead)” between 1977 and 2017. The series examined Egypt’s oldest Muslim cemetery that was also the oldest necropolis in the Middle East. Stretching more than ten kilometers, it is characterized by the coexistence of the living and the dead, as about one million Egyptians live among the tombs. Guillot’s images are sparse in people and concentrate on the effects of time upon the city and its spaces. Limited to two hundred-fifty copies, this photographic edition contained text in both English and Arabic.

Around the turn of the century, Bernard Guillot began combining painting with photography. He used Chinese ink and sometimes acrylic to paint directly onto the gelatin silver print, confusing and interfering with the original image. Through this process, Guillot sought to bring what was present, but not visible, in the external world to the surface. It is this understanding of reality as being more than the present, the seen or the known that informs much of Guillot’s works. Several photographs in the “Cité des Morts” series were altered by this process. Other series linking photography with painting include “Le Cap Blanc-Nez”, “Le Cimetière Juif de Berlin”, and “Mauer Park”.

Later during his time in Cairo, Guillot turned photographs taken with his cell phone into unique books in the style of palimpsests. Both a symbolist and impressionist, Guillot’s photographs were characterized by a mystical and poetic approach that examined time, identity, and the period between states of existence. He utilized the interplay of shadow and reflection, and gave prominence to the enigmatic and the wonders of life.

Bernard Guillot died in Paris on the twenty-ninth of June in 2021at the age of seventy-one. He had exhibited his photographs in multiple group and solo shows throughout his career. Guillot’s photographs are contained in many private collections as well as such public institutions as the Musée d’ Art Moderne in Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Bibliothèque Nationale, American University in Cairo and the Palestinian Museum, among others.

Notes: Palimpsests are manuscripts or pieces of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced, but not completely removed, to make room for later writing. Traces of the original text still are visible. A common example of a palimpsest is reused medieval parchment, a costly writing material at the time, from which old ink was scraped to provide a writing surface for new text.

Galerie Frédéric Moisan has a short article on Bernard Guillot which includes his painted photographs, drawings, paintings and a video of Guillot at the Hôtel Maffet Astoria: http://www.galerie-fmoisan.fr/en/artist/bernard-guillot#/

The photographic archive site TINTERA has a short biography on Bernard Guillot plus a collection of images from the “Atelier du Cairo”, Hôtel Maffet Astoria and “Cite des Morts” series: https://www.tintera.art/bernard-guillot-1

Top Insert Image: Bernard Guillot, “Self Portrait”, July 2021, Gelatin Silver Print

Second Insert Image: Bernard Guillot, Untitled, 1977-2017, “Cité des Morts” Series, Hand Painted Gelatin Silver Print, 67 x 57 cm, Unique Print

Third Insert Image: Bernard Guillot, Untitled, 2004, “Cité des Morts” Series, Gelatin Silver Print, 50 x 42 cm

Bottom Insert Image: Bernard Guillot, Untitled, “Hotel Maffet Astoria” Series, (Balcony Doors), 1979-2003, Gelatin Silver Print

Mare Martin

Mare Martin, “Fire Escape (Persimmon)”, 2016, Etching with Watercolor, 25.4 x 20.3 cm, Private Collection

Born in southwestern Louisiana, Mare Martin is an artist of Cajun descent who spent her formative years on a family farm in Opelousas, a small city in the St. Landry Parish. An integration of life on the land and her artistic practice, Martin’s richly textured work depicts the junction of nature, human spirit and the cosmos.

One of seven family members involved in every aspect of farming, Mare Martin is a gardener as well as an artist; her experiences with gardens in Spain and the southern areas of the United States are interwoven throughout her work. The last two decades of Martin’s work have been heavily influenced by German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s first major scientific work, the 1790 botanical treatise “Metamorphosis of Plants”. She was also inspired by Johann von Goethe’s methodology that encouraged a deepened awareness of form through the reinforcement of sense memory and imagination.

In her process, Martin works as closely to the source as possible. The actual plant with a name is the core idea which expands through multiple media including linen canvases, oil paintings, drawings, and ink transfers. She has more recently embraced more modern methods through technology and projections. Martin’s most recent solo exhibition, “Beyond the Botanical” was held in September of 2025 at the Hilliard Art Museum in Lafayette. The show revolved around five themes: Gardens, Landscapes and Sky-scapes, Elements, Realms, and Forces.

“It took years of drawing to realize that I wasn’t just observing. I was collaborating. Before that, I painted landscapes and general scenes. But when I began to draw individual plants over and over again, in different seasons and different stages, it brought me a unique understanding. It’s a collaboration, which means my ego as an artist has to step aside. I feel more, and then the work is more pure, closer to the truth.”

—Mare Martin, November 19, 2025, Studio Session at the Hilliard Art Museum of the University of Louisiana,Lafayette

Notes: The Director and Senior Researcher of The Nature Institute, Craig Holdrege, has written an excellent article on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s approach to science which includes the essential features of Goethe’s methodology and insight. The article “Doing Goethean Science” can be found at: https://www.natureinstitute.org/article/craig-holdrege/doing-goethean-science

An extended interview/studio session with Mare Martin was held at the Hilliard Art Museum of the University of Louisiana. This interview, entitled “Mare Martin on Drawing, Meditation, and the Intelligence of Nature”, is locate on the museums’s site: https://hilliardartmuseum.org/stories/mare-martin-on-drawing-meditation-and-the-intelligence-of-nature/

J. Carino

The Artwork of J. Carino

Based in Riverside, California, J. Carino is a figurative artist whose work illustrates the interconnection between man with his sense of self-awareness and the natural world, both literal and symbolic. A 2011 graduate of the Parsons School of Design in New York City, he works in a variety of mixed-media techniques and often uses distortion and abstraction in the construction of his work’s figures.

Carino’s images depict nude, queer figures, often monumental in size, who are set in landscapes both idyllic and suffused with danger. Applying ideas from his study of the decorative arts, he explores the concepts of queerness, self-identity, queer intimacy, sensuality, and man’s relationship with the natural world through images of richly colored and patterned, layered figures and flora. During the evolution of his work’s creation, Carino often adds and removes the layers of landscape and figures to achieve the desired result.

J. Carino’s work has appeared in multiple exhibitions both in the United States and overseas. These include both the Act 1 and Act 2 Summer Stage exhibitions at Auxier/Kline in New York, the 2021 online “Eye Candy” exhibition by the WB Gallery, the 2020 Art Pride International, and, in the United Kingdom, the 2022 collective “Come Out & Play” at London’s BEERS gallery and the 2019 exhibition at Rye’s McCully & Crane Gallery, among others.

Solo exhibitions of J. Carino’s paintings include the March 2023 “Genesis” at New York City’s Auxier Kline Gallery; the 2023 “Natural Disaster” at Monti * in Latina, Italy; the February/March 2024 “Emparadise” at the Mornya Rowe Gallery in New York City; the 2025 “Between Garden and Wilderness” at London’s Rhodes Contemporary Art; and, most recently, the 2025 “Carry It With You” at the Yossi Milo Gallery in New York City.

“Like many queer people, there is a dichotomy of wanting to be seen as a whole person, sexuality included, but also the fear of people seeing too much. My figures, often self portraits, inhabit landscapes of abundance and fertility, lush with ferns and fruit, like an eden where these fears dissipate. Through my work, I explore the complicated influence of intimacy, sexuality, and being seen, especially as it relates to gay relationships and our ability to connect with one another and ourselves.” —J. Carino

J. Carino’s work can be found at the artist’s site located at https://www.jcarinoart.com and also at the following gallery locations https://linktr.ee/j.carino.art

Top Insert Image: Tate Tullier, “Portrait of J. Carino”, 2025, Color Print, The Hopper Prize

Bottom Insert Image: J. Carino, “Carrying Beauty”, 2025 Oil and Acrylic on Linen,

Giambologna: “Oceanus”

Giambologna, “Oceanus”, 1576, Marble, Museo del Bargello, Florence, Italy

Born in the Flanders city of Douai in the year 1529, Jehan Boulongne, known as Giambologna, was a Flemish sculptor based in Italy, who was the last significant sculptor of the Italian Renaissance. Working in the period between the High Renaissance and the Baroque, Giambologna transformed the Florentine Mannerism of the mid-sixteenth century into a style of European significance.

In his youth, Giambologna studied in Antwerp under architect and sculptor Jacques Du Brœucq, a Flemish artist who worked in the Italianate style. In 1550, he relocated to Italy and studied the city’s Hellenistic sculptures, particularly those complex groupings of figures in action. Although heavily influenced by the work of Michelangelo, Giambologna developed his own Mannerist style with a particular emphasis on elegance and refined surfaces. Invested in the idea of beauty for its own sake, he created works that featured figures composed of graceful curves, sinuous lines and asymmetrical contrapposto stances.

Giambologna’s elongated Mannerist contoured figures revitalized the Florentine sculptural scene. He was a master of what became known in painting and sculpture as the figura serpentinata, the serpentine figure. Giambologna’s winding figures presented movement as well as expressions of aggression and fear. He enhanced the drama by offering his viewers more than a primary viewpoint of his work; Giambologna specifically created works that could be circled and viewed from all sides. All the features in his work required great technical skill and a precise calculation to both the work process and the stress being placed on his materials.

Giambologna was awarded his first commission by Cardinal Borromeo for a large-scale bronze “Neptune” and secondary figures for a civic fountain in Bologna that would commemorate the election of the Cardinal’s uncle as Pope Pius IV. The over-life-size bronze figure of Neptune was based on an earlier design by Giambologna for a fountain in the city of Florence. His completed figure of Neptune was erected on Bologna’s fountain in 1566. This work led to Giambologna becoming the most important court sculptor of the Medici family.

Giambologna’s celebrated works include the 1578-1580 bronze “Mercury in Flight”, the first version of which is housed at Bologna’s Medieval Museum; the 1574-1582 marble “Abduction of a Sabine Woman” at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence; the 1562 marble “Samson Slaying a Philistine” at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; and the 1599 marble “Hercules and Nessus” in Florence’s Loggia dei Lanza.

A member of the prestigious Accademia delle Art del Disegno, Giambologna died in Florence at the age of seventy-nine in August of 1608. His work influenced later sculptors through his many pupils who traveled throughout Italy and northern Europe.

Notes: Oceanus was the Titan god of the River Okeanos and all of the earth’s rivers, wells and springs. In Giambologna’s sculpture, Oceanus stands with one foot atop the head of a river fish; this symbolizes his command over the animal and all river creatures. As with many of his sculptures, Giambologna carved his marble Oceanus in the round so the viewer can see the statue from all angles.

Commissioned in 1565, the 1576 marble “Oceanus” was designed for the piazza in front of the Pitti Palace and later erected on the axis of the Boboli Garden behind the palace. “Oceanus” was removed early in the seventeenth-century to a site on the Isolotto near Porta Romana. This great marble figure, with its mass of over two tons and height of over three meters, is now preserved in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence.

The art form of contrapposto, from the Latin ‘contraponere’ meaning ‘place against’, refers to an asymmetrical arrangement of the human figure in which the line of the arms and shoulders contrast with, while still balancing, those of the hips and legs.

Linguistic Professor Arnold Zwicky’s blog has an article, entitled “An Ideal Male Body”, that discusses both Giambologna’s marble “Oceanus” and his bronze work for the “Fountain of Neptune” at: https://arnoldzwicky.org/2023/09/15/an-ideal-male-body/

Top Insert Image: Hendrick Goltzius, “Portrait of Giambologna”, 1591, Mixed Media on Paper. Teylers Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands

Second and Third Insert Images: Giambologna, “Oceanus”, 1576, Detail, Marble, Museo del Bargello, Florence, Italy

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Edward Jean Steichen

Photography by Edward Jean Steichen

Born on March 27, 1879, Éduard Jean Steichen was a Luxembourg-born American painter, photographer and curator, who was a key figure in the development of twentieth-century photography. His parents, Jean-Pierre and Marie Kamp Steichen, emigrated with Edward to the United States in 1880, originally settling in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and later moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1889.

In 1894, Steichen began attending Pio Nono College, a Catholic high school for boys in the city of St. Francis, where he was recognized for his drawing skills. After quitting high school, Steichen began a four-year apprenticeship in lithography with Milwaukee’s American Fine Art Company known for its advertisements and panoramic city views. In 1895, he acquired his first camera and became a co-founder with his friends of the Milwaukee Art Students League. Steichen’s first exhibited his photographs, a series of ten works, at the 1899 Second Philadelphia Photographic Salon held at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Éduard Steichen became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1900 and signed his papers as Edward J. Steichen; however, he continued the use of his birth name until after World War I. In April of 1900, he traveled to Paris to study art, both painting and photography. Through an introduction by photographer Clarence H. White, Steichen became a close friend and collaborator with photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who established the 1897 photographic magazine “Camera Notes”.

Steichen was elected in 1901 as a member of London’s Linked Ring Brotherhood which promoted photography as one of the fine arts. In 1902, Steichen was a co-founder, along with White and Stieglitz, of the Photo-Secession movement that promoted photography as a legitimate fine art on the same level as painting and sculpture. He began experimenting in 1904 with color photography and became one of the earliest to use the Autochrome process patented in France by Louis and Auguste Lumière. Steichen helped Stieglitz found New York City’s Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, which became a prominent venue for most avant-garde artists of the time.

After high quality half-tone reproductions of photographs became possible, the genre of fashion photography became established as a fine art. This was made possible by the works of Edward Steichen and French portrait photographer Baron Adolph de Meyer, Tasked by publisher Lucien Vogel in 1911 to promote fashion as fine art, Steichen took photos of couturier Paul Poiret’s designer gowns. Published in color for the April 1911 issue of “Art et Décoration”. two photos from this shoot were done in a soft-focus, aesthetically retouched style. The images idealized the garments beyond the exact description of its fabric and buttons, marking a strong distinction from former hard, sharp commercial images.

In 1940, the Museum of Modern Art in New York inaugurated the first department of photography in a museum; it was overseen by art historian and photographer Beaumont Newhall. In 1942, Steichen curated the museum’s exhibition “Road to Victory”, a series of photographs by enlisted Armed Force members, that also included images of aerial fighting engagements taken by automatic cameras on naval planes. In 1947, he was appointed Director of Photography, a position he used to expand and organize the collection. Steichen recognized new generations of photographers and exhitited early works by such artists as Henry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Among his accomplishments during his term as Director of Photography, Edward Steichen created the MOMA world-touring exhibition “The Family of Man”, a collection of five hundred photos depicting life, love, and death in sixty-eight countries. It was seen by nine million visitors and still holds the record for the most-visited photography exhibition. “The Family of Man” is now permanently housed, on continuous display, at Clervaux Castle in northern Luxembourg, the country of Steichen’s origin.

Steichen’s career did much to popularize and promote the medium of photography. Both before and since his death in March of 1973, photography, including his own, continued to appreciate as a collectible art form. In 2006, Steichen’s early 1904 pictorialist photograph “The Pond-Moonlight”, showing a wooded area and pond in Mamaroneck, New York, sold for US 2.9 million dollars. Steichen achieved the impression of color by manually applying layers of light-sensitive gums to the paper (the autochrome process not being available until 1907). Only three prints of “The Pond-Moonlight”, two being in museums, are known to exist.

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Edward Steichen, Brâncusi, Voulangis, France”, circa 1922, Printed 1987, Gelatin Silver Print, 33 x 26.7 cm, Edward Steichen Trust

Second Insert Image: Edward Jean Steichen, “Walt Disney”, 1933, Gelatin Silver Print, 24.2 x 20 cm, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Museums, Washington DC

Third Insert Image: Edward Jean Steichen, “Gloria Swanson”, 1924, Printed 1960s, Gelatin Silver Print, 24 x 19.1 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

Bottom Insert Image: Edward Jean Steichen, “George Gershwin”, 1927, Gelatin Silver Print, 24.1 x 19.2 cm, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Museums, Washington DC

Egon Schiele: “Freundschaft”

Egon Schiele, ““Freundschaft (Friendship)”, 1913, Watercolor, Gouache and Pencil on Paper, 48.2 x 32 cm, Private Collection

“Freundschaft” is marked by the Expressionist era’s embrace of emotional experience over physical reality through its emphasis on inner experiences. Egon Schiele’s depiction of the human form is distinctly characterized by its contorted and sculptural portrayal. Rather than a literal interpretation, he elongated both limbs and torsos with some features accented and others diminished. Schiele’s dynamic line work, an essential element in his portraiture works, creates both tension and movement within the composition.

As the majority of Schiele’s work was titled posthumously, “Freundschaft” is rather unique in that he titled it himself upon completion. There is no detailed information available on the identity of the depicted figures in this mixed-media work. The couple appear to be Egon Schiele and Walburga “Wally” Neuzil, an Austrian nurse who was both lover and muse to Schiele between 1911 and 1915.

In 1911, Wally Neuzil and Egon Schiele met in Vienna; she was seventeen and he was twenty-one at that time. It is possible that they met through Gustav Klimt, Schiele’s mentor for whom Neuzil was a model. Between 1911 and 1915, Neuzil modeled for some of Schiele’s most noted paintings. They lived together unmarried in Schiele’s Vienna home and eventually settled for a short period in Neulengbach, the lower Austrian district of Sankt Pölten-Land.

After returning to Vienna, Schiele established a studio in 1914 at Hietzing, one of Vienna’s suburbs. It was there that he became attracted to and decided to marry Edith Harms, one of two sisters who lived across the street from his studio. Upon learning this, Neuzil immediately left Schiele and never saw him again. She trained as a nurse in Vienna and began working at various military hospitals in the city. While working at a hospital in the city of Sinj, Dalmatia (now Croatia), Walburga Neuzil died from scarlet fever on the twenty-fifth of December in 1917 at the age of twenty-three.

Egon Schiele presented fifty works at the 49th Vienna Secession exhibition in 1918. His showing was a success that resulted in increased prices for his work and many portrait commissions. In the autumn of 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic reached Vienna. Edith Schiele, who was six months pregnant, died from the disease on the 28th of October. Schiele, who was very sick and in a weak condition, died three days after his wife. He was twenty-eight years old.

Notes: According to art historian and curator Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele’s “Freundschaft” was rejected for exhibition on moral grounds by the Munich Secession on the third of December in 1913. It was swiftly purchased privately by Albert von Keller, the President of the Sucession, for fifty marks.

Around 1915, Johannes Fischer created a series of photographs featuring fellow painter Egon Schiele in his studio at Hietzinger Hauptstraße 101. As a colleague and friend, Fischer often exhibited with Schiele, who was two years his junior. In the article’s first insert image, Schiele is looking directly into the camera, his head slightly inclined and his forehead furrowed. The artist’s stance and expression are reminiscent of his self-portraits, such as the 1912 “Self-Portrait with Lowered Head”. The painting in the photo’s background, “Shrines in the Forest II”, is housed at the Kamm Foundation.

Top Insert Image: Johannes Fischer, “Egon Schiele with the 1915 painting ‘Shrines in the Forest II’ in the background”, 1915, Vintage Print, 16.3 x 11.2 cm, Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria

Second Insert Image: Egon Schiele, “Waldandacht II (Shrines in the Forest II)”, 1915, Oil on Canvas, 100 x 120 cm, Stiftung Sammlung Kamm

Bottom Insert Image: Egon Schiele, “Self-Portrait with Lowered Head”, 1912, Oil on Wood Panel, 337 x 422 cm, Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer, “The Men’s Bath”, Date Unknown (1490-1528), Woodcut on Paper, 38.7 x 27.9 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

A printmaker and painter from Nuremberg, Albrecht Dürer is considered one of the most prolific and inventive artists in the German Renaissance. Dürer worked and traveled frequently to Italy during his studies of visual arts and spent time with a lifelong partner, Willibald Prickheimer, a German lawyer and humanist author.

Albrecht Dürer’s depiction of men relaxing in a public bath house was unusual in the early 1500s because it showed nudity without an accompanying mythological or biblical narrative. The print showcases Dürer’s ability to depict the male figure in various inventive poses and may feature portraits of some of his friends. Meant to be studied closely, the image includes visual puns such as the faucet placed near the man’s groin at left. The popularity of the print during Dürer’s lifetime may relate to the 1496 closure of the public bath in his hometown of Nuremberg to prevent a syphilis outbreak.

Notes: The “Ideas Made of Light” blog has an excellent article by its author, artist and UI designer Scott M.McDaniel, on Albecht Dürer’s “The Men’s Bathhouse” at: http://www.scottmcd.net/artanalysis/?p=702

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Brian Henry

The Photography of Brian Henry

Based in Maryland’s east coast city of Baltimore, Brian Henry is a self-taught, experimental analog photographer and explorer of abandoned sites. His work is an ongoing journal that documents architectural decay, explores the human body and its relationship to deserted spaces, examines emotions stirred by intimacy, fear and mortality, and uses the medium of photography as a narrative instrument.

Brian Henry became intrigued with analog photographic material and its capabilities during a traditional high school photography class. He became interested in how little alterations in the process changed the appearance of the image. Although Henry won a several scholarships to attend art school, he chose to apply his resources to his own unscripted, artistic journey. Henry has traveled a photographic journey up and down the East Coast of the U.S., as well as Europe and the Balkans.

For a period of nearly twenty years, Brian Henry has worked with different films, cameras and chemicals to understand how each affected the image of his subject. The equipment he prefers are the Pentx 67 with 55mm and Hp5 as well as Polaroid cameras and their films. Henry has learned and expanded upon traditional darkroom printing processes, often altering the prints and complimenting the subject with effects of distress and decay. He has at times buried the images in decaying buildings to achieve the correct effect for the each print’s unique irreplaceable mementos of time.

In 2019, Brian Henry participated in the seventh edition of the Revela’t Analog Photography Festival in Vilassar de Dalt near Barcelona, Spain. He has also presented his work in several group exhibitions including the 2018 “Fotofilmic17” at Galerie Binome in Paris and “The Male Gaze” at Seattle, Washington’s Gallery 1/1 in the United States. In 2019, Henry had is first solo exhibition, “Brian Henry: Silver Gelatin & Polaroid Prints” at the Steven Amedee Gallery in New York City.

Brian Henry and Greg Hatem are co-owners of Bazaar Curious Gifts at 3534 Chestnut Street in Baltimore’s iconic Hampden neighborhood. This is the gift shop for those seeking strange and unusual gifts, among which are an unique collection of natural history items, antique medical instruments, unique home decor items and other curious objects. The Bazaar Curious Gifts online shop is located at: https://www.bazaarbaltimore.com

“My work is an ongoing journal documenting architectural decay and my own mortality. I attempt to portray the beauty I see in these structures and occasionally include myself and others within them…. When I shoot Polaroid film, I consider it a unique souvenir of my experience. There’s something meaningful in creating something tangible within a space that will soon be destroyed. Other film mediums allow me to bend reality and add additional effects of distress and decay. In some instances, I have used photographic paper and film found in abandoned buildings. Other times, I have buried my images in decaying buildings for effects. It is all part of my attempts of connecting with a space.” —Brian Henry

Notes: The Thoughts & Photography of Johnny Martyr website has a 2019 interview with Brian Henry entitled “The Instant (Film) Decay of Brian Henry” at: https://johnnymartyr.wordpress.com/2019/03/21/the-instant-film-decay-of-brian-henry/

The fine art photography daily “LENS/CRATCH” has an article and interview with Brian Henry entitled “Beyond Instant Eros: Brian Henry’s Polaroids of Desire and Decay” at: https://lenscratch.com/2024/05/queer-photography-week-decay-mortality-brian-henry/

If you choose to repost some of Brian Henry’s photos, please credit the artist on the posting.

Top Insert Image: Brian Henry, “Self Portrait”, Color Print

Second Insert Image: Brian Henry, “Presence”, Gelatin Silver Print

Bottom Insert Image: Brian Henry, Title Unknown (Self-Portrait), Gelatin Silver Print

David Burke: Film History

David Burke as Dr. James Hamish Watson, 1984, “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, Color Photo, Independent Television (ITV), London

Born in Liverpool on the twenty-fifth of May in 1934, David Patrick George Burke was a British actor trained at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His career of fifty-three years encompassed theatrical, film and television roles.

The son of the deeply Catholic Patrick and Mary Burke from County Cork, Ireland, David Burke decided early in life, despite his mother’s disapproval, to enter into the world of theater. His first small role was in an Oxford University performance during his studies at the college. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Burke was a classically trained actor whose passion was the theater. He worked for the National Theatre of Great Britain, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Royal Lyceum Company.

In 1971, Burke married actress Anna Calder Marshall, a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, who had just finished a lead role opposite Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 drama film “Wuthering Heights”. Both David and Anna Burke continued their careers in theater after their marriage. David Burke acted in a series of Shakespearean plays: the role of Othello (1975), Hector in “Troilus and Cressida” (1985), Kent in “King Lear” (1997) , and John of Gaunt in “Richard II”(2000).

David Burke did not confine himself to the classics but acted in such theatrical productions as Alfred Neumann’s 1962 adaptation of “War and Peace” at the Phoenix and Old Vic Theatres in London; Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” at the Olivier, National Theatre; Nermin Hamzagic’s 2008 production of Michael Frayn’s “Copenhagen” at the Royal National Theatre; and James Macdonald’s 2013 production of Arnold Wesker’s raw drama “Roots” at London’s Donmar Warehouse. Burke also recorded audio versions of Shakespeare’s plays as well as such modern works as playwright Samuel Beckett’s 1952 “Waiting for Godot”.

The most constant and solid support for Burke’s career came from his many diverse roles on the television screen that began in 1963. These appearances broadened his audience and heightened his acting reputation. Burke became a familiar face on many of the era’s classic detective shows including “Dixon of Dock Green” and “Barlow at Large”. He portrayed Joseph Stalin in the 1983 “Reilly, Ace of Spies” and performed in such television productions as “The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling”, “The Guardians”, “The Winter’s Tale”, and the 1963 Hercules Poirot film “Pension Vanilos”.

Of all his roles, David Burke is most often recognized for his performance as Sherlock Holmes’s companion, Dr. John Watson. However, his initial role in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes series was not that of Watson but the cynical Sir George Burnwell in “The Beryl Coronet”, the eighth episode of the 1964/1965 British Broadcasting Company series “Sherlock”. British producer and director Michael Cox, who had worked previously with Burke, immediately gave him the role of Watson for the upcoming Granada Television series “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”. In that role, Burke successfully embodied the alert, curious, caring and sympathetic attributes of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Watson as he was envisioned by the author.

Asked to sign a contract for another season (The Return of Sherlock Holmes), Burke declined, citing his wish to return to his wife, Anna, and young son, Tom, in the family’s Kent home. For his replacement, he recommended the perfect successor, Edward Hardwicke, an actor whose accomplishments paralleled Burke’s career. After leaving the Holmes series, Burke and his wife accepted an offer to perform together with the Royal Shakespeare Company and continued to act in their later years. Burke also appeared with Anna Calder-Marshall in Clare Holman’s 2018 short drama film “Only the Lonely”.

David Patrick George Burke died on the tenth of May in 2026. A British postage stamp commemorating the Sherlock Holmes series featured an image of David Burke and Jeremy Brett as Watson and Holmes. David and Anna Burke’s son, Tom Burke, became an actor and is best known for the BBC series “The Three Musketeers” and his starring role in “Strike”, an episode of which he performed with his parents.

Notes: Clare Holman’s 2018 “Only the Lonely”, featuring David Burke and Anna Calder-Marshall, can be seen in its entirety on the Klipist website: https://klipist.com/watch/only-the-lonely/

Biographies of both David Burke and Jeremy Brett as well as the history of the BBC “Sherlock Holmes” television series can be found at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia located at: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/wiki/David_Burke

For those who wish to known all the episodes of Granada Television’s 1984/1994 “Sherlock Holmes”series, the episodes titles and dates are listed on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sherlock_Holmes_episodes

Top Insert Image: David Burke as John Hale, “The Crucible”, 1990, Olivier Theatre, National Theater, London

Second Insert Image: David Burke as Camillo, 1981, “The Winter’s Tale”, Director Jane Howell, BBC Television/Video

Bottom Insert Image: David Burke as Vilhelm Foldal, 2007, David Eldridge’s Adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s “John Gabriel Borkman”, Donmar Warehouse, London

Gonzalo Orquin

The Artwork of Gonzalo Orquin

Born in 1982 at Aracena, a town in the Sierra de Aracena and Picos de Aroche National Park, Gonzalo Orquín is a Spanish multi-media artist, painter and photographer. His oeuvre includes works on paper, oils on canvas, street art, and installations.

At an early age, Orquin relocated with his family to Seville, the provincial capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia. He studied Fine Arts at Spain’s University of Seville between 2000 and 2004. Orquin continued his studies at Italy’s University of Perugia in 2005. He later undertook a residency at the Fondazione Sant’Elia, the cultural center for the promotion of the artistic and cultural heritage of the Province of Palermo, where his work was inspired by the light and traditions of the surrounding area.

Gonzalo Orquin’s work is influenced by the traditional Spanish realism of both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. through which he transforms the intimacy of everyday occurrences into measured dramatic events. His paintings consist of portraits and populated scenes, both interior and exterior, that are often created with a muted palette. Committed to the rights of the LBGTQ world, Orquin’w work, which displays a thoughtful depth of emotion, focuses on both gay and straight subjects with an eye to both the past and the present.

In 1999 at the age of sixteen, Orquin had his first exhibition in Seville. His first solo exhibition was held in Rome in 2006. In that year, Orquin received the Oltre i Libri Award from the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities. He has participated in group shows at Rome’s Royal Spanish Academy and St. Petersburg’s Museum of 20th and 21st Century Art. Orquin has presented his work in solo exhibitions at Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MACRO), and the Leslie=Lohman Museum of Art in New York City.

As a photographer, Gonzalo Orquin is best known for his 2013 series “Si Quiero”, a collection of sixteen photographs of same-sex couples kissing in churches mainly located in Rome. Originally presented as part of “Trialogo”, a solo exhibition of his work in various mediums, these images were considered offensive by the diocese of Rome which threatened legal action. For the duration of the exhibition, these images were covered with black cardboard. Later exhibitions of the entire series were held at the Gallery MooiMan in Groningen, the Netherlands, and New York’s Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in April/May of 2015.

In 2023, Orquin presented his exhibition “Being Human-The Sea At Night Is Too Big” at Brussels’s MigratieMuseumMigration (MMM). This show focused on the stories and experiences of migrant and refugees arriving in Europe, either by sea to Italy or by land to Bosnia. The project was a collaboration with Italian photojournalist Francesco Malavolta which included a documentary film by French director Alex Forge who narrates Orquin’s work process and meetings with the migrants and refugees.

Gonzalo Orquin currently lives and works between Italy and Spain. A twenty-year retrospective exhibition of his work was held in Palermo, Italy in September of 2025. Orquin’s website is located at: https://www.gonzaloorquin.com

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Gonzalo Orquin”, 2021, Color Video Shot

Second Insert Image: Gonzalo Orquin, Untitled Still Life (Art Supplies), Oil on Canvas

Third Insert Image: Gonzalo Orquin, “Julian and Leo”, 2022, Oil on Canvas, 90 x70 cm

Bottom Insert Image: Gonzalo Orquin, “Un Muchacho Ruso”, 2022, Oil on Canvas, 45 x 45 cm

NASA Mars Recruitment Posters

NASA Mars Recruitment Posters for Explorers: Art by NASA

Born in Chicago, Illinois in September of 1875, Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American writer of adventure, fantasy and science fiction series. He was the fourth son of Civil War veteran Major George Tyler Burroughs and Mary Evaline Zieger , both of whom were from Warren, Massachusetts.

Edgar Rice Burroughs is best known for the twenty-four books of the “Tarzan” series and the eleven-volume Barsoom series with the early sci-fi hero John Carter, a Civil War veteran from Virginia who becomes a warrior on the planet Mars. Created in 1911, the character of Carter has appeared in short stories, novels, comic books, television shows and films, most notably Andrew Stanton’s 2012 feature film “John Carter”, that marked the 101st anniversary of John Carter’s first published appearance.

Burroughs’s first novel of the Barsoom/Carter series, “Under the Moons of Mars”, was written between July and September of 1911; it was serialized in Frank Munsey’s monthly pulp magazine “The All Story” from February to July in 1913. After the publishing success of Burroughs’s “Tarzan” series, “Under the Moons of Mars” was published as a hardcover edition in October of 1917 by A.C. McClurg & Company under the title “A Princess of Mars”.

John Carter was the lead character in Burroughs’s first novel of the Barsoom series. He featured most prominently in five of the following volumes: “The Gods of Mars”, “The Warlord of Mars”, ‘The Swords of Mars”, “Llana of Gathol”, and “John Carter of Mars” published in 1964, fourteen years after Burroughs’s death. As a secondary character, Carter appeared in the fourth volume “Thuvia, Maid of Mars” and the ninth volume “Synthetic Men of Mars’. A volume, entitled “John Carter of Mars: Gods of the Forgotten” by sci fi author Geary Gravel, was released by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. in September of 2021.

Homages to Burroughs’s character John Carter and his world of Mars have appeared in works by such science fiction writers as Alan Moore, Robert A. Heinlein, Charles Stross, Philip José Farmer, and Harry Turtledove. In 2020, Altus Press released an authorized “Tarzan”novel entitled “Tarzan: Conqueror of Mars” written by Will Murray. In the novel, Tarzan finds himself marooned on Barsoom and seeks John Carter’s help to return home.

The Karnak Temple

Photographer Unknown, (Inside the Karnak Temple in Luxor)

Consisting of more than one hundred hectares, Karnak is an ancient temple precinct in Egypt located on the east bank of the Nile River in modern-day Luxor, formerly Thebes. The largest sector is the central portion which is dedicated to Amun-Ra, considered to be the supreme creator, the god of fertility and life.

In the southern central sector is a precinct dedicated to the goddess Mut, wife of Amun-Ra, the primal mother goddess who is associated with the waters from which everything is born. She was a patron deity of Thebes along with her husband Amun-Ra and their son Khonsu, god of the moon.

North of the central area is a precinct dedicated to Montu, the falcon headed god of war and embodiment of the conquering vitality of the Pharaoh. The ancient god Montu was the manifestation of the sun, Ra, whose scorching destructive effect caused him to be considered initially a warrior; he was eventually given status as a god of war.

To the east of the central sector, there is an area that was dedicated to Aten, the solar disc. The deity Aten was the focus of the monotheistic religion established by Amenhotep IV who worshiped Aten as the creator, the giver of life, and the nurturing spirit of the world. Horemheb, the last Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, reestablished the priesthood of Amun and destroyed the temple area of Aten. A prolific builder, Horemheb constructed the Second, Ninth and Tenth Pylons of the great Hypostyle Hall in the precinct of Amon-Ra at the Temple of Karnak.

The last major building program at Karnak was under the reign of Nectanebo I, a king of the Thirtieth and last Dynasty of Egypt. He built a large enclosure wall around the site along with another temple. He also started, but did not complete, a new pylon at the western entrance of Karnak. The rulers of foreign descent who took control of Egypt continued work at Karnak, creating a series of burial catacombs dedicated to Osiris, god of the underworld. When Rome seized control of Egypt in 30BCE and maintained control for a six hundred year period. Structual work at Karnak ceased when Rome established power, ending a span of two thousand years of construction. .

Dwight Frye: Film History Series

Photographer Unknown, “Dwight Frye”, circa 1930s, Studio Photo, Gelatin Silver Print, Universal Pictures, Private Collection

Born in the central Kansas city of Salina in February of 1899, Dwight Frye was an American stage and screen actor who appeared in over sixty films during his career.

Born into the farming family of Charles Fry and Ella Dodd, a deeply devout member of the Christian Scientist church, Dwight Frye at an early age relocated with his family to Denver, Colorado where he spent his formative years. Already showing signs as a career musician, Frye gave his first solo recital on the piano at the age of fifteen. However by his senior high school year, he had developed a love for the theater and made the decision to pursue acting.

While working as a secretary in a Denver business firm, Frye spent his free time at the acting academy founded by stage and film actress Margaret Fealy. Recognized for his acting skill, he joined the Denham Stock Company and performed primarily in comedic and musical productions. Frye began touring with the company as its juvenile lead; however he soon became an actor much in demand. In 1918 during the influenza outbreak, Frye performed with the Woodward Players at theaters in Spokane, Washington where he was lauded as the local celebrity.

Dwight Frye relocated to New York City to seek success on its Broadway theater circuit. He played a romantic role in Hubert Osborne’s 1923 adaptation of Julian Street’s novel “Rita Coventry” at the Bijou Theatre. In 1924, Frye received recognition for his role in the production of Luigi Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” at the Princess Theatre. This was followed by the role of Melville Tuttle in Patrick Kearney’s 1925 three-act play “A Man’s Man” at the 52nd Street Theatre.

Frye’s acting career in Hollywood began with several uncredited roles in films produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Brothers Pictures, and Fox Film Company between 1926 and 1930. With the advent of sound films, he became known for his portrayal of villains and unbalanced characters. Frye’s first role of note was the madman R. M. Renfield in Tod Browning’s 1931 “Dracula”, a Garrett Fort adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel for Universal Pictures.

In the 1930s, Dwight Frye had supporting roles within thirty-eight movies; he alternated his characters between horror, drama, adventure, and crime films. In 1931, Frye performed two of his better-known roles: Fritz, the hunchbacked assistant in James Whale’s “Frankenstein” for Universal Pictures, and gunman Wilmer Cook in Roy Del Ruth’s directorial film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon”. Frye also portrayed the suspected killer in “The Vampire Bat” and a reporter in “The Invisible Man”, both 1933 Universal Pictures productions. He later took the role of Dr. Thomas, playing opposite Erich von Stroheim’s Dr. Crespi, in John H. Auer’s 1935 horror film “The Crime of Dr. Crespi” produced by Liberty Pictures.

In 1935, Frye returned to Universal Pictures to take the supporting role of Karl in what became another Universal Pictures classic, James Whale’s “The Bride of Frankenstein”. Other films in the 1930s included two with James Cagney: the 1930 crime drama “The Doorway to Hell” and the role of Mr. Easton in the 1937 musical “Something to Sing About”. Other films include the 1937 action movie “Sea Devils”, the 1938 crime films “Invisible Enemies” and “The Night Hawk”, the 1938 South Seas adventure film “Sinners in Paradise”, and director James Whale’s 1939 historical drama “The Man in the Iron Mask”.

In the early 1940s, Dwight Frye performed in both film roles and stage productions that ranged from comedies to musicals; he also made an appearance in a Broadway stage production of “Dracula” with Bela Lugosi. In the early stages of World War II, Frye made a contribution to the war effort by working at night as a tool designer for the Lockheed Aircraft Company.

In the early 1940s, American screenwriter and producer Lamar Trotti was working on a screen play for a biopic about Woodrow Wilson, aided by the assistance of Wilson’s daughter Eleanor and journalist Ray Stannard Baker. After the role of President Wilson was cast, Frye was chosen for the role of Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. A few days before his scheduled filming, Dwight Frye died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four on the seventh of November in 1943. His funeral service was held at the Utter-McKinley Mortuary and his body was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Notes: Produced by 20th Century-Fox, the 1944 “Wilson” received critical acclaim and earned ten nominations at the 17th Academy Awards, wining five including Best Writing and Original Screenplay.

Live Journal, a community publishing platform, has an excellent memorial article on Dwight Frye at its site: https://vintage-gold.livejournal.com/1366.html

Tales from the Border has a 2015 article entitled “What a Character! Blogathon: The Ballad of Dwight Frye” that has information not available on other sites: https://talesfromtheborder.com/2015/11/21/what-a-character-blogathon-the-ballad-of-dwight-frye/

Top Insert Image: Film Shot, “Dwight Frye as Flandrin”, 1933, “The Circus Queen Murder”, Director Roy William Neill, Cinematography Joseph H. August, Columbia Pictures

Second Insert Image: Film Shot, “Dwight Frye as Renfield”, 1931, “Dracula”, Director Tod Browning, Cinematography Karl Freund, Universal Pictures

Third Insert Image: Film Shot, “Dwight Frye as Jessop”, 1931, “The Black Camel” (Charlie Chan Series), Director Hamilton MacFadden, Cinematography Joseph August and Daniel B. Clark, Fox Film Corporation

Bottom Insert Image: Film Shot, “Dwight Frye as Wilmer Cook”, 1931, “The Maltese Falcon”, Director Roy Del Ruth, Cinematography William Rees, Warner Brothers Pictures

Stéphane Bouquet: “One of Those Vibrations in the Air”

Photographers Unknown, One of Those Vibrations in the Air

His look and it took maybe 3
hello / seconds
only his head underneath the blue hoodie
he takes off
because the rain is stopping look here’s
the planner’s confirmation and
someone’s holding an imaginary map of the conversation we’ll say
that and that
the streets wil be all orderly
if I stay close inside
the zones he surveys
but it isn’t easy
imagining that the table and the lamp and the evening
sound like his breathlessness when he uncovers me and cleans

Stéphane Bouquet, The Next Loves I, The Next Loves, September 2019, Translations by Lindsay Turner, Nightboat Books, Brooklyn, New York

Bed t-shirt and husky voice
we do yoga together much less strong
than I am but so much more beautiful
at the end in savasana when we’re supposed to become
one of those vibrations in the air and the ritual bell
sets us
almost behind absence I can only
think like an animal to live oh oh
oh that long slim desire
stretched out a meters away if I
rolled over on him really would that from now on be the only
hope of slowing
because of the sweetness in your bones
the quickness of death against which I recite a rose
is a rose is a rose is a rose

Stéphane Bouquet, The Next Loves V, The Next Loves, September 2019, Translations by Lindsay Turner, Nightboat Books, Brooklyn, New York

Born in Paris in October of 1967, Stéphane Bouquet was a French poet, author, actor, screenwriter, choreographer, film critic and an established translator of works from the New York School of Poets..

Born to a French nurse and an American soldier, Stéphane Bouquet studied at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne in Paris from which he graduated with his Master of Arts in Economics. After his studies, he was employed as a culture journalist and writer for the renowned “Cahiers du Cinéma”, the oldest French-language film magazine in publication. As a longtime film critic, Bouquet published books on such directors Gus Van Sant, Clint Eastwood and Sergei Eisenstein, as well as a work on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1964 epic neorealist biblical drama “The Gospel According to St. Matthew”.

Bouquet published his first collection of poems, “Dand l’Année de cet Âge (In the Year of this Age)”, in 2001 through Champ Vallon Éditions. Taken from the inscription “in anno aetatis” engraved on Roman tombs, the series of poems follow the day to day life of a man as he ponders life and death. Bouquet wrote seven more collections of poetry among which are “Vie Commune” (2016) and “Les Amours Suivants” (2013). These two works, later translated into English by Lindsay Turner, were reprinted as “Common Life” and “The Next Loves”.

As a screenwriter, Stéphane Bouquet, in collaboration with French director Sébastien Lifshitz, wrote the screenplay for the 2001 autobiographical feature film “La Traversée (The Crossing)”. With Bouquet in the lead role, the film followed the real-life search for the father Bouquet never met. Continuing his collaboration with Lifshitz, he wrote several screenplays for both short and feature LBGTQ films; these include “Les Corps Ouverts (Open Bodies)”, “Les Vies de Thérèse (The Lives of Thérèse)”, “Presque Rien (Come Undone)”, and “Côté Sauvage (Wild Side)”, a winner of four film festival awards. Bouquet also wrote screenplays for French directors Valérie Mréjen, Yann Dedet, and Robert Cantarella.

Bouquet was awarded a 2002-2003 fellowship at the Villa Medici in Rome. During this time, he participated as a dancer in contemporary choreographer Mathilde Monnier’s 2002 production “Déroutes” at the Festival d’Automne de Paris. Bouquet served as both dancer and screenwriter for Monnier’s “Frère & Soeur” that premiered at the Centre Pompidou during the 2005 Avignon Festival. He also conducted workshops for choreographers at the Centre National de la Danse in Paris as well as workshops for actors and stage directors at La Manufacture in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Stéphane Bouquet translated into French the works of such American poets as James Schuyler, Paul Blackburn, and Peter Gizzi. He served as literary critic for the daily French newspaper “Libération” and contributed articles to the evening “Le Monde”. Bouquet was a featured speaker at international residencies and festivals including the 2018 Toronto Festival of Authors and the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair. A recipient of a 2003 Prix de Rome and a 2007 Mission Stendhal Award, Stéphane Bouquet died at the age of fifty-seven in Paris on the twenty-fourth of August in 2025.

Notes: Stéphane Bouquet’s poem “Light of the Fig” can be found at the World Literature Today site: https://worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/poetry/light-fig-stephane-bouquet

The Poetry Society of America has an article on Stéphane Bouquet’s style of poetry in its Visiting Poet section by the University of Denver’s Assistant Professor of English and Literary Arts Lindsay Turner: https://poetrysociety.org/poems-essays/visiting-poet/bouquet

Top Insert Image:Photographer Unknown, “Stéphane Bouquet”, 2018, Color Print, Eon Magazine, Number 54, Association for the Promotion of Culture, Art, Education and Scientific Research, Sibiu, Romania

Second Insert Image: Stéphane Bouquet, “The Next Loves (Les Amours Suivants)”, English Translation Paperback, September 2019, Nightboat Books, Brooklyn, New York

Bottom Insert Image: Stéphane Bouquet, “Clint Fucking Eastwood”, January 2012, French Edition, Capricci Publishing Limited, London