Gorgeous Photos of Classic Beauties in the 1920s and ’30s Taken by Hal Phyfe ~ Vintage Everyday

October 6, 2021

Gorgeous Photos of Classic Beauties in the 1920s and ’30s Taken by Hal Phyfe

October 06, 2021 1920s, 1930s, celebrity & famous people, portraits

Born 1892 as Herold Rodney Eaton Phyfe in Nice, France, Hal Phyfe was the great grandson of Duncan Phyfe, the famous furniture designer. He trained as a sculptor in France and also he studied painting in Italy. It was during World War I that he began pursuing photography documenting aviation units in Europe.

Classic beauties in the 1920s and 1930s taken by Hal Phyfe

After the war, Hal supported himself as an illustrator for magazines but did not open his photography studio at the corner of 72nd and Madison, New York until 1926. He had built a reputation for portraitures. Primarily a photographer, he was also noted for using oil, pastels and colored pencils; many of his images found their way to the covers of movie and theatrical magazines.

Hal was famous for his theatrical portraits of the 1920s and 1930s. His photos have been described as “competent, but not in the Cecil Beaton or Edward Steichen league”. He photographed a range of celebrities including Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., Anna Q. Nilsson and Carveth Wells, and became known as “the official photographer to high society” and “one of the best amateur cooks in Manhattan”.

Hal Phyfe died in 1968 at the age of 76. These gorgeous photos are part of his work that Hal took portraits of classic beauties in the 1920s and 1930s.