Thursday, February 10, 2011

New Orleans Architects & E.J. Bellocq

New Orleanian John Ernest Joseph Bellocq (1873-1949) is most renowned for his photographs of Storyville prostitutes, but he also worked for local architects to record their events and accomplishments. The journal Architectural Art and Its Allies is riddled with reproductions of Bellocq photographs, some with attributions and others not.

On 19 August 1908, the city's architects and contractors participated in an "Exchange Outing Day" on the Tchefuncta River across Lake Pontchartrain. They boarded the steamer G.H.A. Thomas, after assembling at Canal Street and the Half Way House (recently razed) to catch a train to the West End. E.J. Bellocq captured part of the journey, as Roy C. Moyston acknowledged in Architectural Art and Its Allies:

"After reaching the further neck of the canal, however, the steamer slowed down in order to attitudinize for the benefit of Photographer Belloc [sic], whose effort is here reproduced."

Image and quoted text from Moyston, Roy C. "Exchange Outing Day." Architectural Art and Its Allies 4:2 (August 1908): p. 3.

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