I came across this curious photo of Carmel Myers on EBay recently. I found it curious because, even though the signature of Apeda of NY is in the bottom right corner of the photo, it had appeared in the August 1918 issue of Motion Picture Magazine with a very prominent Evans signature on the bottom left corner, as well as the June 1917 Photoplay with credit to Evans. So, what gives?
A closer examination of the 'Apeda' version shows evidence of the Evans signature having been covered over. Clearly, whenever Triangle added their code to the photo, they also changed the signatures.
Apeda/Triangle version
Motion Picture Magazine version
The reason for the change may be tied to Evans' employment by Mack Sennett as the head of his Stills Department. When Evans started working with Sennett in March 1917, Sennett's Keystone Studio was part of the Triangle Film Corp. However, in a few months Sennett split with Triangle and left the Keystone brand with them. The new Mack Sennett Studio continued with the same personnel minus any Triangle management that had been on the lot. Evans stayed with Sennett until he entered the Army in October of 1918. Because Sennett's leaving of Triangle was anything but amicable, it seems very likely that Triangle removed Evans' name from the photo because he was an employee of Mack Sennett.
I think there's a simpler explanation to this... Apeda Studio did take their own photos but they also had a semi-shady practice of making prints of non-copyrighted photos of other photographers/studios (but not before removing the old photographer's trademark and adding their own.) In fact, White took them to court over it and actually lost!
ReplyDeleteAs if researching photographers from the silent era isn't difficult enough! You will find the Evans signature on photos that have been credited to other photographers, but in those cases, they were photos that he had taken while he was working for others, namely Witzel and Stagg. Thanks for the info!
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