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  • ABOUT

    Emil Otto Hoppé (1878-1972) was one of the most important fine art and documentary photographers of the modern era.

    Starting as an amateur photographer in 1903, Hoppé was soon admitted as a member of Britain’s Royal Photographic Society where he regularly exhibited his work. He was also part of The Brotherhood of the Linked Ring, an organization whose goal was to promote photography as a true fine art.

    Hoppé’s early photos regularly received high-profile prizes, and he quickly moved from amateur to a full-time professional and master of studio camera portraiture. His subjects include a Who’s Who of important personalities in the arts, literature, politics and society. Among the many hundreds of prominent figures he photographed were Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Enrico Caruso, George Gershwin, Henry James, H.G. Wells, Lillian Gish, Anna May Wong, Marion Davies, A.A. Milne, Rudyard Kipling, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Thomas Hardy, Vita Sackville-West, Paul Robeson, Sylvia Pankhurst, Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Margot Fonteyn, Benito Mussolini, Queen Mary, King George V, and other royalty, nobility, politicians, artists and activists from around the world.

    After mastering both formal studio and modernist street portraits, Hoppé began to travel the globe, for months and then years at a stretch, to capture the character of entire nations and continents as he became a landscape, travel and cultural documentary photographer. He published a range of popular books of his travels, recording places, people and things that had not been widely seen or appreciated in the West.

    In retirement from major photographic projects after 1947, for the rest of his life Hoppé mined his body of photographic work and his unique travel experiences as a prolific writer for newspapers, magazines and books.

    In 1954, Hoppé sold his extensive inventory of prints and negatives to the Mansell Collection, a London stock photo agency. Hoppé’s images were permanently filed away by subject, not by author. As a result, his enormous body of work was no longer available to be seen properly. Mainstream public awareness of the man who was once the most famous photographer in the world dissipated.

    Decades later, through the efforts of curator and photographer Graham Howe, Hoppé’s images were carefully extracted from the stock photo library and re-assembled as part of the E. O. Hoppé Estate Collection managed by Curatorial Inc.

    Today, Hoppé’s photographs are being restored and made available in high resolution scans and unprecedented quality using his personal vintage prints and many tens of thousands of his original camera negatives. Most of these images have never been seen before by the public. Hoppé’s art is being distributed, analyzed, and celebrated once again in new books and public museum exhibitions around the world.

    VIEW DETAILED YEAR-BY-YEAR BIOGRAPHICAL TIMELINE PURCHASE AND LICENSE E.O. HOPPE IMAGES
  • IMAGES
    PEOPLE
    • Ballets Russes
    • Celebrities
    • Literary Figures
    • The English
    • The Irish
    • Nudes
    PLACES
    • Africa
    • Australia
    • Austria
    • Germany
    • Great Britain
    • India
    • Indonesia
    • Italy
    • Jamaica
    • New Zealand
    • Romania Woman in nun's clothing
    • United States of America
    THEMES
    • The Land
    • Age of Industry
    • Advertising & Fashion
    • Abstractions
    • Oddities & Curiosities
    BROWSE ALL WEBSITE IMAGES
  • BIOGRAPHY
    • A Life in Pictures: E.O. Hoppé Eras
    • Click a Chapter for Details
    • 1878-1900 Early Years
    • 1901-1906 Amateur Art Photographer
    • 1907-1910 Going Professional
    • 1911-1918 Fame
    • 1919-1922 From Studio to Street
    • 1923-1924 Portraits of Nations
    • 1925 Portrait of Great Britain
    • 1926 Portrait of the United States
    • 1928 British and German Industry
    • 1929 The Indian Subcontinent
    • 1930 Australia, New Zealand & Indonesia
    • 1931-1933 Return to Europe
    • 1934-1936 A Time of Transitions
    • 1937-1939 Before the Storm
    • 1940-1945 World War II
    • 1946-1972 Writer and Authority
    • 1972-present A Legacy of Remarkable Images
    VIEW THE E.O. HOPPE STORY YEAR-BY-YEAR
  • RESOURCES
    • View Entire Online Archive, Purchase & License Images
    • Publications
    • Exhibitions
    • Ballets Russes Print Portfolio Edition
    • Nudes Print Portfolio Edition Nudes by E.O. Hoppé: A Limited Edition Museum Box Set Portfolio
    • FAQs
    Full Image Archive: Purchase and Licensing
  • CONTACT
      • E. O. Hoppé Estate Collection
        c/o Curatorial, Inc.
        Graham Howe, Director
        113 East Union Street
        Pasadena, California 91103 USA
      • info [at] eohoppe [dot] com
        T.+1 626 577 9696
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      • The E. O. Hoppé Estate Collection is
        managed by Curatorial, Inc.

Old Lambeth Bridge, London, c. 1910

Old Lambeth Bridge, London, c. 1910

Tamara Karsavina in The Firebird, London, England, 1911

Tamara Karsavina in 'The Firebird', London, England, 1911

John Galsworthy, 1912

John Galsworthy, 1912

Franz, Jewish Immigrant, New York City, 1921

Franz, Jewish Immigrant, New York City, 1921

E.O. Hoppé, Romanticist Self Portrait, London, 1912

E.O. Hoppé, Romanticist Self Portrait, London, 1912

Pepita Bobadilla, 1919

Pepita Bobadilla, 1919

Traffic Policeman, London, 1918

Traffic Policeman, London, 1918

Lytton Strachey, 1918

Lytton Strachey, 1918

Rebecca West, 1918

Rebecca West, 1918

Rudyard Kipling, 1912

Rudyard Kipling, 1912

T.S. Eliot, 1919

T.S. Eliot, 1919

Thomas Hardy, 1914

Thomas Hardy, 1914

Violet Hunt, 1912

Violet Hunt, 1912

Vita Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson, 1916

Vita Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson, 1916

W. Somerset Maugham, 1912

W. Somerset Maugham, 1912

Henry James, 1912

Henry James, 1912

A.A. Milne, 1916

A.A. Milne, 1916

Arthur Edward Waite, 1914

Arthur Edward Waite, 1914

Ezra Pound, 1918

Ezra Pound, 1918

Serpentine, Hyde Park, London, 1910

Serpentine, Hyde Park, London, 1910

Jacob Epstein with Oscar Wilde Tomb Sculpture, 1911

Jacob Epstein (with Oscar Wilde Tomb Sculpture), 1911

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The E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection. © COPYRIGHT Curatorial, Inc.

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