The Evans Signatures

One of the more interesting facets of the Evans story is the signature that appeared on his (and his studio's) portraits.  While 2 particular signatures are most common, there are a few variations that are worth looking at.  Note that my research into the signatures is still very much ongoing and what follows contains a bit of conjecture on my part.

The 1917 - 1920 Signature

This is the original Evans signature and lasted until sometime in the middle of 1920.  Unlike that of many other Hollywood photographers of the time, it is simple, yet distinct.  The signature also appears on portraits taken as early as 1914, although not added until Evans established his studio and could better exploit them.








The 1920 - 1922 Signature

In mid-1920, Evans changed his signature to this slightly fancier version.  The E is very similar to Evans' actual signature, but much more neatly written.




The Honeymoon Signature

At the beginning of 1922, Evans married Rosalie Knight and spent the next 6 months on a honeymoon trip to the continent.  Of course, during this time the studio continued with business as usual.  To indicate that the portraits taken at this time were done by other photographers, an Evans Studio signature was used.  It's possible it was also used briefly after his death.      



Post-1922 Signatures

After Nelson's death, the official studio logo was used on photographs.  It may have also been used on prints of earlier photos that were sold by the studio during this period.  





Sometime in the mid 20s, the studio changed its name to Nelson Evans Studio.  By this time, the studio clientele included fewer and fewer actors, so this signature is fairly rare.  It, too, may have been added to earlier photos. 



 
Odd Variations

I've come across 2 signatures that I still can't quite fit into the picture (excuse the pun).

This one I've only seen twice, both on portraits of Viola Dana.  However, I've also seen one of the photos with his regular signature.  The photo was published early in 1922, so it could be a replacement signature as Evans was away on his honeymoon. 

This one is a true mystery.  I've seen it appear on photos that I've also seen with one of his other signatures.  It's possible that this is the signature that was used while he was serving in the military in 1918.  Or it could be another post-1922 signature, used exclusively on earlier photographs.

Note that the E is very similar in style to the signature of George Cannons.  Cannons was a British photographer who came to Los Angeles around 1924 and worked for Mack Sennett.  There's no evidence that he ever worked for the Evans Studio, so we may never know why the signatures are similar.  Perhaps it is just coincidence.






As I had said earlier, this is a work in progress.  I am still looking for a signature that would fit into Nelson's brief time in the military between late 1918 and early 1919.  Expectation is that it would be similar to the one used during his honeymoon.  I am also looking into the signatures of another photographer in hopes of proving that Evans did an apprenticeship before opening his own studio.  Hopefully, I will find enough positive evidence that I can share something soon.

Part of the Family

My research into the life of Nelson Evans occasionally goes in odd directions, but none quite so surprising as the turn it recently took.  Part of my Memorial Day weekend was spent at a reunion of my dad's family.  As seems to be typical of reunions, some of the family brought along photo albums.  One of these albums contained genealogical research one of my cousins had done.  Now, I've done my own share of such research into my family, so I was a bit surprised when I saw among my cousin's research the surname of Hysel.

As told in one of my earlier posts about his marriage history, in 1909 Nelson had eloped with Helen Hysell to Michigan.  Since both were living apart by the end of the year, it appears that the marriage ended in annulment, if not divorce.  I knew that Helen's family was originally from the southeastern part of Ohio, not terribly far from the area my own family resided at the time.  However, I didn't recall anyone by the name of Hysell or Hysel in my family tree.  That bit of mystery was solved on another page of my cousin's research: there I saw the name spelled as Hisle, which was familiar to me.  But could it be the same family?

When I was back home the next day, I started to investigate.  Fortunately, I had already traced the Hysell and Hisle families back to the late 1700s.  Taking a closer look at the earliest ancestors in both lines, it quickly became clear that there was indeed a connection: both families were living in the same county at the same time, both came from the same town in Virginia, and both were using the Hisle spelling.  However, I still needed to find the common ancestor.  Again, that proved a bit easier than I was expecting, helped by the fact that my great-great-great-great grandfather's name was Nimrod.  Going by birth dates, it seemed possible that he was the brother of the earliest ancestor I had found in Helen's family tree.  And it turns out that I was correct: the common ancestor was Leonard Hisle, my great-great-great-great-great grandfather and Helen's great-great-great grandfather.

I don't think this discovery changes my approach to my research into Nelson's life, but it certainly makes me more curious about Helen, someone I already found interesting.  Knowing that she is a (very) distant relative seems like reason enough to start finding out more about her, too.  

On Memorial Day

On this Memorial Day, it seems appropriate to pay tribute to the members of Nelson Evans' family who lost their lives in the service of their country.

Going back to the Revolutionary War, Nelson's great-great-great grandfather Jonathan Wadsworth was killed in the Battle of Saratoga on September 19, 1777.  He had only been in the Army for a few months before his death.  He was 48 years old. 

Nelson's grandfather, Ephraim Evans joined the Union army in 1862 as a member of Company D of the Ohio 125th Regiment.  By 1864 he had reached the rank of Captain.  However, on June 27th of that year he was wounded at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia.  On July 8th, he died of his wounds. 

Charles Hopkins Evans, Nelson's older brother, was 18 when he joined Battery H of the First Battalion, Ohio Light Artillery (the same unit that his uncle Edwin Hopkins had been in during the Civil War) in 1898. serving in the Spanish American War.  By 1900 he was Sgt. Evans of the 41st New York Regiment and in the Philippines.  On March 12th, 1901, Charles was killed in battle.

        

I Visit the Evans Studio. Sort of.

On past trips to Los Angeles, I've visited the site of the Evans Studio, but for some reason never had a camera handy.  So on my most recent trip, I made sure to have a camera on me.

 Unfortunately, the building was torn down long ago, probably in the late 30s or early 40s.  Now the site is the parking lot for a community health center.  For those interested in finding the site, it is on the north side of Hollywood Blvd, just east of the intersection with Gower.

Harold Lloyd Visits the Evans Studio

One of the things I enjoy about watching silent comedies is seeing Los Angeles as it was 100 years ago.  Whether it is foot chases through Chinatown or a car racing down Hollywood Boulevard, the opportunity to see sights long gone I find incredibly fascinating.  So you can imagine how excited I was to find out that the Evans Studio made an appearance in the 1918 Harold Lloyd 1-reel short Look Pleasant, Please.

Lloyd appears as his glasses character in the ten minute film.  The plot involves a flirting photographer (William Gillespie) who makes a move on client Bebe Daniels.  Bebe's response is to call her husband, who immediately heads off to the photographer's studio in a jealous rage.  Meanwhile in a nearby store, grocery clerk Harold is being chased by a group of cops after trying to cheat a customer.  His flight, no surprise, takes him to the photography studio, where the very frightened photographer offers him the opportunity to take his place, in hopes that Bebe's jealous husband takes out his anger on the wrong man.  At this point in the film, the action get chaotic (or should that be more chaotic), as Harold tries his hand behind the camera, with the expected slapstick results, and the husband shows up ready to kill.

 

Lloyd and Snub Pollard in front of the Evans Studio

 While the interiors were sets, the exteriors of the studio were shot at the entrance to the Evans Studio.  Interestingly, no effort was made to hide the name of the studio, with the Evans logo clearly seen on windows and awnings.

Snub stands by as a group of women head into the studio.  Probably not an uncommon sight! 

When I first heard about this film, I was curious to see if the photographer might have been modeled after Evans.  Although one could imagine that someone who was becoming known for his photographs of young ladies in bathing suits might get a reputation for flirtatious behavior, it's more than likely that the plot of the film was already set before the location was chosen.  It's also likely that Evans offered the use of his studio for the chance at some free publicity for the barely year-old business.

One bit of irony: Evans seems to have never photographed Harold Lloyd.

La Fazenda

In doing my research on Nelson Evans, I've gained an appreciation for photographs of the first quarter of the 20th century.  Although the silver gelatin process was in common use for black and white pictures up until 50 years ago, those from a century back have a quality that is missing from later examples.  Quite simply, they glow.  While I have many examples in my collection, I've chosen this one of Louise Fazenda because, well, it's Louise Fazenda!

 

I'm not sure how well it will show up here, but the lacing on her dress practically sparkles on the actual photo.  How much control Evans had over this type of effect is difficult to say, but it is more pronounced in his earlier photos.  BTW, notice the window on the left side of the photo.  It appears to be cut from another photo and added here, probably covering up a blown-out section where the sunlight was coming in.  A bit awkwardly done, but not bad for a hundred years ago. 

   

The American Feature Film Company

Before he became a photographer of movie stars, Nelson Evans' first venture in show business was as a film exchange man.  Beginning around 1903, film exchanges were the distributors of movies, acting as a middleman between film producers and exhibitors.  An exchange would typically handle films from specific producers or, as in the case of Evan's business, specialize in a certain type of film.

Despite naming his exchange The American Feature Film Company, Evans distributed only foreign films.  Ads show that he was handling films from countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden.

The first mention of The American Feature Film Company was in the October 5th 1912 issue of The Motion Picture World.  In the "Doings at Los Angeles" column, Evans' mishandling of submitting a film to the local censor board is told.  The board had made a special arrangement to view a film (The Yellow Peril from Germany) he was trying to rent to a local theater, but Evans was apparently unaware of the special meeting and failed to show up.  The board did watch the film the next day at their regular meeting and passed it with a few cuts.  The delay, however, cost Evans 3 days of business on the film.

This incident probably took place sometime in the late summer of 1912, as the Evans family had moved to Toledo, Ohio by September of that year.  It is unknown exactly when this first iteration of The American Feature Film Company began, but it does show that Evans' interest in the film business began during his first stay in Los Angeles.

After a few months in Toledo, Evans restarted the business in January of 1913.  From his base in northeast Ohio, Evans' territory covered not only Ohio, but Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky as well.  To cover the southern part of this area, the company also had an office in Cincinnati.  By early 1914, Evans appears to have sold the business, which continued as the Lake Erie Film Brokers, and began another film exchange in Cleveland.

Evans partnered with two Cincinnati businessmen, I.W. McMahon and Jerome Jackson, as well as his partner in the American Feature Film Co., W. J. Findlay, and his father Charles, to create the Independent Feature Film Company.  The company was formed with capital stock of $25,000 (very roughly around $500,000 in today's money). 

For whatever reason, the Independent Feature Film Company, or at least Evans' involvement, was short-lived.  In the fall of 1914, several press releases and full-page ads announced the creation of the Standard Program Association, a conglomeration of several film exchanges, with the intention of distributing a standard package of films across the country.  Evans was named as one of the vice presidents of the association, which is impressive for a 25 year old with less than 5 years experience in the business.  The Standard Program was set to begin in January of 1915, but according to some sources (not yet verified), Evans had already returned to Los Angeles and started his career as a photographer in the last months of 1914 (however, the ad below, from December 1914, still has him listed as a vice-president).  As for the Standard Program Association, it's ultimate fate is unknown, the last mention of it in trade magazines being in the very month it was to begin.

 Information is still sketchy concerning the end of Evans' career in the film exchange business and his subsequent return to Los Angeles.  Did his business go under?  Did he just tire of it?  Were there health reasons?  Perhaps the lure of a job in the film industry, which had begun it's exodus westward by this time, pulled him back.  Like most of the questions that come up in my research, we will never be able to answer them.