Historical Portrait
London, Jack, portrait photograph
Archive record
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in.
About this photograph
This glass negative preserves Arnold Genthe's portrait of the writer Jack London, made in 1906. Genthe kept a studio in San Francisco from 1896 to 1911, working in the soft-focus pictorialist style. After his death in 1942, the Library of Congress acquired roughly 20,000 items from his unclaimed studio.
The date places the portrait during London's most productive years as a novelist and journalist. By 1906 London had already published several of his best-known works and established himself as a prominent literary figure.
The five-by-seven-inch glass negative was Genthe's working format. The Library of Congress collection holds several thousand studio portraits alongside Genthe's other photographic work from the period.
Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.
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