Alfred Cheney Johnston (known as "Cheney" to his friends and associates) (April 8, 1885 - April 17, 1971) was a New York City-based photographer known for his portraits of Ziegfeld Follies showgirls as well as of 1920s/1930s actors and actresses.
Johnston was born into a well-to-do New York banking family, which subsequently moved to Mount Vernon, NY. Initially he studied painting and illustration at the National Academy of Design in New York, but after graduating in 1908 (and marrying fellow student Doris Gernon the next year), his subsequent efforts to earn a living as a portrait painter did not meet with success. Instead, reportedly at the suggestion of longtime family friend and famed illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, he started to employ the camera previously used to record his painting subjects as his basic creative medium.
In approximately 1917, Johnston was hired by famed New York City live-theater showman and producer Florenz Ziegfeld as a contracted photographer, and was affiliated with the Ziegfeld Follies for the next fifteen years or so (he also maintained his own highly successful personal commercial photo studio at various locations around New York City as well, photographing everything from aspiring actresses and society matrons to a wide range of upscale retail commercial products—mostly men's and women's fashions—for magazine ads). He photographed several hundred actresses and showgirls (mainly in New York City, and whether they were part of the Follies or not) during that time period.
The only book known to have been published by Alfred Cheney Johnston during his lifetime devoted to his nudes/glamour photography is the 1937 spiral-bound softcover "Enchanting Beauty", which contains 94 black-and-white photos. Unusually (compared to virtually all other examples of his work seen today on the Web or other sources, which were shot in an indoor studio in front of a flat-black or illustrated tapestry background cloth), 37 of these photos were taken outdoors along a stream or in flower-dappled fields, etc. Unfortunately—but not surprisingly—all the shots in the book are "airbrushed" in the pubic area, to keep them legal with respect to the publishing standards of the day.
via:wikipedia.org
Johnston was born into a well-to-do New York banking family, which subsequently moved to Mount Vernon, NY. Initially he studied painting and illustration at the National Academy of Design in New York, but after graduating in 1908 (and marrying fellow student Doris Gernon the next year), his subsequent efforts to earn a living as a portrait painter did not meet with success. Instead, reportedly at the suggestion of longtime family friend and famed illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, he started to employ the camera previously used to record his painting subjects as his basic creative medium.
In approximately 1917, Johnston was hired by famed New York City live-theater showman and producer Florenz Ziegfeld as a contracted photographer, and was affiliated with the Ziegfeld Follies for the next fifteen years or so (he also maintained his own highly successful personal commercial photo studio at various locations around New York City as well, photographing everything from aspiring actresses and society matrons to a wide range of upscale retail commercial products—mostly men's and women's fashions—for magazine ads). He photographed several hundred actresses and showgirls (mainly in New York City, and whether they were part of the Follies or not) during that time period.
The only book known to have been published by Alfred Cheney Johnston during his lifetime devoted to his nudes/glamour photography is the 1937 spiral-bound softcover "Enchanting Beauty", which contains 94 black-and-white photos. Unusually (compared to virtually all other examples of his work seen today on the Web or other sources, which were shot in an indoor studio in front of a flat-black or illustrated tapestry background cloth), 37 of these photos were taken outdoors along a stream or in flower-dappled fields, etc. Unfortunately—but not surprisingly—all the shots in the book are "airbrushed" in the pubic area, to keep them legal with respect to the publishing standards of the day.
via:wikipedia.org
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