E.O. Hoppé

This week, on 11 June 2024, an arson fire and subsequent water damage destroyed the burial crypt of St Michan's Church, Dublin and its historic natural mummies, dating back hundreds of years, that had been seen by thousands of visitors. Hoppé visited and photographed them almost 100 years ago in 1926.

"Visitors in the vaults of St Michan's Church, Dublin, 1926," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

Aurea Clifton (1908-1952) was a nurse and registered midwife. The daughter of a wealthy explorer, at 18 she was presented as a debutante to King George V & Queen Mary in an elaborate gown. By this portrait five years later, she had adopted this very different, androgynous style. Instead of pursuing traditional marriage, she became dedicated to healthcare for women. In 1938, she permanently immigrated to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to treat women there.

"Aurea Clifton, 1932," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

"Physical exercises at Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, England, 1932," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

"Bibi Ka Maqbara, Aurangabad, India, 1929," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

Hoppé was a keen advocate of unconventional and creative people, and artist Alan Odle was a prime example. An illustrator, his work was phantasmagoric, surreal and often disturbing. He counted sci-fi writer H.G. Wells among his fans. Odle presented a flamboyant, gender-bending personal style, never cutting his hair, he just wrapped it around his head. He didn't trim his fingernails either. These eccentricities are featured, not downplayed, in his Hoppé portraits, used as press promotions for Odle's short-lived art magazine.

"Alan Odle, 1916," by E. O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.
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Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947) was a multi-talented artist, writer, philosopher, archaeologist and more. He conceived the Roerich Pact, an international treaty to protect cultural monuments even in times of war.

"Nicholas Roerich, 1920," by E. O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

"Ann Hays, legs, parasol, 1934," by E. O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Famed for his poems "The Waste Land," "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" and plays like "Murder in the Cathedral," his collection "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" was adapted into the perennial hit musical "Cats" by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
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"T. S. Eliot, 1919," by E. O. Hoppé.
©E. O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

"Dancing on Bank Holiday, Hyde Park, London, 1929," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.
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"Airfield, San Antonio, Texas, 1926," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.
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Eileen Mayo (1906-1994) was a prolific artist who worked in many genres, from drawings to calligraphy, tapestries, even stamps and coinage. She is seen here painting a woman with a cat, a favorite theme in her work.
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"Eileen Mayo, 1930," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

For International Sherlock Holmes Day, we share a couple of Hoppé portraits of his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which were made at the author's home, Wyndlesham Manor, in Sussex.
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"Arthur Conan Doyle, 1912," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

Laurent Novikoff (1888-1956) was a dancer with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and a favorite partner of prima ballerina Anna Pavlova. He went on to the Chicago Opera, New York's Metropolitan Opera, and eventually founded his own dance school in New Buffalo, Michigan.

"Laurent Novikoff, 1912," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was one of the most influential poets of the 20th century, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. Born in Ireland, he was a staunch Irish nationalist. He was fascinated by occult beliefs and themes, and was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn along with fellow Hoppé sitters Aleister Crowley, Arthur Machen, A.E. Waite and (perhaps) Arthur Conan Doyle. Yeats' apocalyptic poem "The Second Coming" in particular is widely anthologized and taught today.

"William Butler Yeats, 1913," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

Maria Teresa Sanchez (aka Marie de Miramar), the "High Priestess of Voodoo" was the second wife of occultist Aleister Crowley, whom the press called "the wickedest man in the world." Pictured here just after their wedding, the union was short-lived. By the next year the marriage had collapsed, and by 1931, Maria was certified insane and committed to Colney Hatch Mental Hospital, where she remained until her 1955 death.

"Mrs Aleister Crowley, 1929," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

This intimidating-looking fellow is writer and mystic A.E. Waite. He's best known for the creation of the Rider-Waite tarot card deck, still widely published and used today by tarot practitioners. Alfred Edward Waite was a prominent spiritual scholar, occultist, high-level Freemason, and member of the controversial Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

"A.E. Waite, 1914," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

Billie Carleton (1896-1918) was a London West End musical comedy performer who became even more famed with her premature death at age 22, three years after this Hoppé photograph. Discovered by producer C.B. Cochran, Carleton rapidly became involved with the drug-charged underbelly of the London theatrical scene. After attending a Victory Ball celebrating the end of World War I at the Royal Albert Hall, Carleton went home to the Savoy Hotel, where she was discovered the next day, dead of a drug overdose. The ensuing inquest and scandal inspired Noël Coward's first hit play, The Vortex.

"Billie Carleton, 1915," by E.O. Hoppé.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

London's traditional Pearly Kings and Queens are known by their distinctive costumes, elaborately festooned with pearlescent buttons. A much-loved tradition since the 1870s, the 'Pearlies' have been devoted to promoting a wide variety of London-based charities.
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"'Pearlies,' Liz and Dennis Simmons, 1922," by E.O. Hoppé.
© E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

"The Great Barrier Reef, Heron Island, Queensland Australia, 1930," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

"Humber car, 1935," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.
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"On St. Bride's Steeple, London, 1936," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

H.G. Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific writer and thinker on many topics, most famed for his iconic science fiction novels like The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau, and many more.

"H.G. Wells, 1912," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

Lady Diana Cooper (1892-1986) was an actress, popular socialite and hostess, mingling effortlessly with royalty and political leaders. Born Lady Diana Manners, she was a key member of The Coterie, a group of prominent upper class intellectuals, most of whom were killed in World War I. She was considered one of the most beautiful women in England. Hoppé photographed her on several occasions and in some very theatrical costumes and poses. She acted on both stage and film with directors including Max Reinhardt and D.W. Griffith. She wrote several volumes of memoirs and lived into her nineties, outlasting nearly all of her contemporaries.

"Lady Diana Cooper, 1916," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

"Children in Orchard, Horsmonden, Kent, 1935," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

It's the Halloween of Spring. Call it Walpurgis Night/Beltane/May Day, many traditional cultures used this time for a variety of Spring festivals and observances. Here we see members of the Marion Morgan Dancers in a pastoral frolic that seems appropriate to the season. The troupe was woman-driven and devoted to performing dances based on classical and mythological themes, but their popularity in vaudeville theaters probably owed more to their beauty, fitness regime, and scant clothing.
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"Miss Josephine McLean and Miss Josephine Head, Marion Morgan Dancers, 1923," by E.O. Hoppé.

"George Bernard Shaw watching pavement artist John Bentley, London, ca. 1933," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

Lubov Tchernicheva (1890-1976) was a ballet dancer and key member of the Ballets Russes from 1911 to its 1929 demise. She continued to perform onstage until 1957.
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"Lubov Tchernicheva as Zobeida in Schéhérazade, ca.1920s," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

"Temple mask, Chinatown, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, 1930," by E.O. Hoppé.
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©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.

New exhibition open today! Hoppé's Australia: Photographs from the Oroton Collection. 18-27 April 2024.

Visit at 109 Shepherd St., Chippendale, Australia, M-F 11-5, Sat 11-3.
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Lady Lucy (Lucile) Duff-Gordon was an internationally successful fashion designer and businesswoman who achieved unrelated fame as a survivor of the Titanic disaster, which happened 112 years ago this week. She is seen here 10 years after the event. Lucy and her husband Cosmo escaped in Lifeboat #1, which became infamous because it held only 12 people when designed for 40, and did not rescue anyone from the water afterwards. She is portrayed in most prominent dramatizations of the disaster, and was played by Rosalind Ayres in James Cameron's Titanic (1997).

"Lady Lucy (Lucile) Duff-Gordon, 1922," by E.O. Hoppé.
©E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection.