VASTA: music hall

Showing posts with label music hall. Show all posts

Monday, July 20, 2026

Josephine Baker: Black Goddess Paris 1920's

American born Josephine Baker (1906~1975) traveled to Paris in 1925 to perform in La Revue Negre where she became an overnight success. The rest of the her "pop-star" history is one of most interesting of the first half of the 20th century. And a "real life" American in Paris story!

Baker went on to star at the Folies Bergere and the Casino de Paris, beginning in 1926 until the early 1930s. Her more than 40 years as a American expat living in France, brought her fame not only as music-hall royalty but also as a celebrity on and off the stage. Her career and life story are well documented on the web, therefore my posting here will include Baker material rarely seen. Note that all the photographs of Baker, and all the other performers and performances at the Folies Bergere, were made by Walery, also known as the Paris Art Studio.

The top scan is the die-cut cover of the 1926-1927 Folies Bergere program, the first appearance of Baker at that fabled music-hall.

Colorized photograph from the 1927 Folies program showing Baker in
minimal costume of feathers and "pearls"

Baker doing the Charleston on stage at the Folies

Small format (approx.1.5" x 2.5"), souvenir packet with 20 photographs of Baker.
Published by the Casino de Paris, circa 1932; note advertising for Columbia records and Bakerfix on the packet exterior.

Bakerfix, circa early 1930s. Tube of "brillantine" hair fixative promoted using Baker's name. Baker appears to be one of the first celebrities to license her name for use in advertising.

Italian postcard, circa early 1930s. From a celebrated series of caricatures of performers and movie stars illustrated by Nino Za.

Photo postcard, circa early 1930s. Casino de Paris costume.

Photograph by Madame d'Ora.

A hand-tinted Josephine published in Germany by Iris

Photo postcard, circa 1927. Folies Bergere costume.

Photograph by Walery

Cover photograph, Bobino theatre program, Paris 1975. After the overwhelming success of her 1973 Carnige Hall performance in New York City, Baker returned to the Paris stage to some of the best reviews of her career. Sadly, this was her final performance, as Baker died of a cerebral hemorrhage at 68 years old, a few days after the show closed.

Complete sheet of 50 French 2f,80 commemorative stamps published on the

twentieth anniversary of Baker's death in 1995.

_____

Click the first photo for link to eBay store

vasta@earthlink.net

@vasta_archives

Folies Bergere programs: Paris 1920s/30s

The Folies Bergere music-hall, located in Paris is a world famous venue attracting travelers and tourists for decades dating back to its original incarnation in 1869. The Folies Bergere is known for their incredible "spectacles" created during the 1920s and '30s under the direction of Paul Derval, where Josephine Baker became an overnight sensation, circa 1925.

In circa 1923 the Folies began publishing lavishly produced souvenir programs. Each program was dedicated to one full season showing the primary performers in costume and all the staged "spectacles", some as colorized, two page photo spreads.

The programs for pre-occupied Paris were published until 1938. The thousands of photographs appearing in the programs were, amazing, all credited to a single photographer, Walery and his Paris Art Studio.

\

Two top illustrations are both hardcover volumes with the first nine Folies programs, circa 1923 ~ circa 1931, together with the original covers bound-in. These bound volumes were presented by Paul Derval to distinguished guests and friends of the Folies. The volume in red covers was bound in Czechoslovakia.

Program for 1930. Une Coup de Folie.

Each program cover was die-cut to reveal a part of the colorized photograph on the first page. The black and white was "colorized" by the printer to recreate how the photograph might appear in color. Not until 35mm color film for motion pictures was spooled for the Leica camera, in 1937, was true color (transparency) photography possible.

Program for 1929. De La Folie Pure.

Note the pre-King Kong image of beauty and the beast!

Program for 1931. L'Usine Folies

Embossed silver foil covers

Click the top photo for eBay store link

vasta@earthlink.net

@vasta_archives

Saturday, August 26, 2023

Paris Plaisirs: Magazine Tres Parisien 1920s/30s

Kiki de Montparnasse, cover late 1920s

Paris Plaisirs: Magazine Tres Parisien 1920s/30s

Another favorite French magazine of the 1920s and 1930s is the, mostly unknown, Paris Plaisirs. It is comparable to the legendary, large format art deco era, La Vie Parisienne in style and size, while focusing on the stars of the music-hall. Paris Plaisirs also differed in another major aspect: it used photographs as well as illustrations in each issue. Many covers featured the creativity of Austrian

photographer Manasse.

eBay store

vasta@earthlink.net

Cigarette Cards circa 1900 ~ 1930s

Cigarettes cards appeared for the first time as a premium in the United States, circa 1875.

It was in the U.K. in 1887 that W.D. & H.O. Wills began including advertising cards with their cigarettes. Other cigarette producing tobacco companies soon followed suit and by the turn-of-the-century the cigarette trading card was quite common and collectible. By the 1920s the cards became so popular that the cigarette companies and "aftermarket" vendors starting making albums to hold the cards, usually produced in thematic, numbered sets of 20, 50 or 100.

____________

(above) Hand-tinted, real photo Melia cigarette card, circa 1925.

Photograph by Albert Wyndham Studio, Paris

____________

The cards from the U.K. are ubiquitous and best known, therefore I will focus on the hand-tinted, real photo cigarette cards from north Africa, circa 1905~1920s and the movie star albums from Germany, circa 1930s.

eBay store

Cigarettes Clement, Oran (Tunisia), circa 1905~1910

Hand-tinted, real photos of Parisian music-hall performers

Cigarettes Le Nil, Tunisia, circa 1920

Sepia-toned real photos of performers, actresses mounted

into a period album.

Cigarettes Bastos, Oran (Tunisia), circa 1925

Beautifully printed in toned gravure, nude and risque

images of performers

___________

The German cigarette companies followed suit with cigarette card sets and albums of their own. Not only were they aware of what the English cigarette companies were doing but also of two major German companies, Stollwerck (chocolate) and Liebig (beef extract/bouillon), both of which created beautiful and pedagogical collectible trade cards as premiums. Liebig began issuing its cards in 1872; Stollwerck a bit later, circa 1890s. Stollwerck's name as a chocolate maker, known worldwide, was guaranteed at the 1893 World Colombian Exposition in Chicago where, the 38 foot high, 15 ton Stollwerck pavilion (below), replicating a Renaissance temple, was constructed of chocolate!

With the creation of German cigarette cards in the late 1920s/early 1930s, the focus was on the international cinema and the actors and actresses that starred in them. Soon after cigarette cards were being used to tell the story of the rise of national socialism, the history of the German people, the Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin, modern dance, the circus, German vaudeville (variete) and more.

(above and below) Two illustrations showing 21 cards of actors and actresses
from the Moderne Schonheits Galerie series, circa 1933. Published by Kur Mark the series comprised 300 cards.One of the most elaborately designed and beautifully produced cigarette card sets ever made with amazing embossed borders and impeccably printed, color-ized photo portraits.

Cards measure 2" x 2.5"