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Bellocq: Photographs from Storyville, the Red-Light District of New Orleans
An expanded and revised edition of the famous book of portraits of prostitutes in turn-of-the-century New Orleans, the inspiration for the Louis Malle film Pretty Baby. This new edition includes 52 tritone photos printed in a large format. The text from the original edition--by John Szarjowski, former director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art--is reprinted here, along with a new Introduction by Susan Sontag.
83 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1970
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About the author
John Szarkowski
96books28followersJohn Szarkowski was an influential photographer, curator, historian, and critic. From 1962 to 1991 Szarkowski was the Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 30, 2016
I don't know when I first learned the name E. J. Bellocq but it was around five years ago that I became truly fascinated with his work. At that time I added this book to my Amazon wishlist even though the only copies available were used and prices started at $100. I consoled myself with some images and articles online. I even made a trip to .
Fast-forward to now, and I finally have it in my hands. My copy is in poor condition but the provenance makes up for it. There was a bar here in New Orleans, recently shuttered, named after Bellocq - a quiet and dark place, meant to evoke the Storyville feel without being gaudy or gauche. Of course they had a copy of this book displayed on the back bar. It's suffered a few spills and the rough caresses of dozens of drunks, but that makes it all the more special to me. I have done a lot of photography work for the owner of the bar and so the negotiation for this to come into my possession was brief and fulfilling.
The photographs are reproduced here at the size of the original plates and as a result are even more fascinating than I had imagined. I put the book down halfway through and left it for a few days because I wanted to savor the feeling of knowing I had more images to consume. You can only look at each one for the first time once, you know?
I'm sure that at the time the images were titillating or scandalous but a hundred years later they're anything but. What they are is an intoxicating view of a time, place, and people that are long gone. Every image invites you to linger and study the details of the walls, the decorations, the clothing - there's a sort of inversion as the women themselves become the background and the other details clamor to be at the forefront.
Endlessly captivating. You can come over and check out my copy sometime, but I don't think I can let you borrow it. Having coveted it for so long I'd be loath to let it out of my sight.
Fast-forward to now, and I finally have it in my hands. My copy is in poor condition but the provenance makes up for it. There was a bar here in New Orleans, recently shuttered, named after Bellocq - a quiet and dark place, meant to evoke the Storyville feel without being gaudy or gauche. Of course they had a copy of this book displayed on the back bar. It's suffered a few spills and the rough caresses of dozens of drunks, but that makes it all the more special to me. I have done a lot of photography work for the owner of the bar and so the negotiation for this to come into my possession was brief and fulfilling.
The photographs are reproduced here at the size of the original plates and as a result are even more fascinating than I had imagined. I put the book down halfway through and left it for a few days because I wanted to savor the feeling of knowing I had more images to consume. You can only look at each one for the first time once, you know?
I'm sure that at the time the images were titillating or scandalous but a hundred years later they're anything but. What they are is an intoxicating view of a time, place, and people that are long gone. Every image invites you to linger and study the details of the walls, the decorations, the clothing - there's a sort of inversion as the women themselves become the background and the other details clamor to be at the forefront.
Endlessly captivating. You can come over and check out my copy sometime, but I don't think I can let you borrow it. Having coveted it for so long I'd be loath to let it out of my sight.
March 3, 2019
·EJ Bellocq, Storyville Portraits, c. 1910�1912
·Natasha Trethewey, , 2002
After reading Michael Ondaatje's , I wanted to see more of the EJ Bellocq photographs that inspired many of the scenes � and so much of the mood � of that novel. The portraits he took of Storyville prostitutes were found many years after his death, and many of them are damaged, but this somehow adds to their air of poignancy. It's remarkable how much feeling and personality is captured in these strange shots, which Bellocq took privately and never showed to anyone except a few close friends.
They hit us, now, through multiple layers of interpretation � all carefully posed and set up by Bellocq, never candid, and therefore making you constantly aware of how we see these women through a male gaze, however complex. Natasha Trethewey's second poetry collection attempts to give them back a voice � an imagined one, of course, and therefore not without its own problems, but even so it's quite a powerful and inspiring feat of creative energy.
It's possible to flick back and forth between her book of poems and a book of the photographs, and look for one-to-one matches � I certainly did, and many of the sonnets do represent little bursts of direct ecphrasis:
But many of them don't necessarily have direct correspondences in that way. Instead, they make up a sort of imagined biography of one (pick one) of the girls in a New Orleans ‘coloured� brothel like Lula White's or Willie Piazza's in the second decade of the century � the letters home, the reflections on the different types of customer, the mixed feelings about posing for Bellocq.
In Trethewey's verse, these women are wry and articulate, thoughtful, analytical, well aware of their circumstances and opportunities. ‘I'm not so foolish / that I don't know this photograph that we make / will bear the stamp of his name, not mine,� one says. How realistic it all is no one can say � certainly the faces in Bellocq's pictures suggest a variety of different responses and emotions whose range goes beyond even what can be captured in Trethewey's poems. Her writing sends you back to the photos, studying each subject anew, and thinking:
·Natasha Trethewey, , 2002
I wear my best gown for the picture�
white silk with seed pearls and ostrich feathers�
my hair in a loose chignon. Behind me,
Bellocq's black scrum just covers the laundry�
tea towels, bleached and frayed, drying on the line.
I look away from his lens to appear
demure, to attract those guests not wanting
the lewd sights of Emma Johnson's circus.
Countess writes my description for the book�
“Violet,� a fair-skinned beauty, recites
poetry and soliloquies; nightly
she performs her tableau vivant, becomes
a living statue, an object of art�
and I fade again into someone I'm not.
After reading Michael Ondaatje's , I wanted to see more of the EJ Bellocq photographs that inspired many of the scenes � and so much of the mood � of that novel. The portraits he took of Storyville prostitutes were found many years after his death, and many of them are damaged, but this somehow adds to their air of poignancy. It's remarkable how much feeling and personality is captured in these strange shots, which Bellocq took privately and never showed to anyone except a few close friends.
They hit us, now, through multiple layers of interpretation � all carefully posed and set up by Bellocq, never candid, and therefore making you constantly aware of how we see these women through a male gaze, however complex. Natasha Trethewey's second poetry collection attempts to give them back a voice � an imagined one, of course, and therefore not without its own problems, but even so it's quite a powerful and inspiring feat of creative energy.
It's possible to flick back and forth between her book of poems and a book of the photographs, and look for one-to-one matches � I certainly did, and many of the sonnets do represent little bursts of direct ecphrasis:
I pose nude for this photograph, awkward,
one arm folded behind my back, the other
limp at my side. Seated, I raise my chin,
my back so straight I imagine the bones
separating in my spine, my neck lengthening
like evening shadows. When I see this plate
I try to recall what I was thinking�
how not to be exposed, though naked, how
to wear skin like a garment, seamless.
Bellocq thinks I'm right for the camera, keeps
coming to my room. These plates are fragile,
he says, showing me how easy it is
to shatter this image of myself, how
a quick scratch carves a scar across my chest.
But many of them don't necessarily have direct correspondences in that way. Instead, they make up a sort of imagined biography of one (pick one) of the girls in a New Orleans ‘coloured� brothel like Lula White's or Willie Piazza's in the second decade of the century � the letters home, the reflections on the different types of customer, the mixed feelings about posing for Bellocq.
It troubles me to think that I am suited
for this work—spectacle and fetish�
a pale odalisque. But then I recall
my earliest training—childhood—how
my mother taught me to curtsy and be still
so that I might please a white man, my father.
For him I learned to shape my gestures,
practiced expressions on my pliant face.
I've learned the camera well—the danger
of it, the half-truths it can tell, but also
the way it fastens us to our pasts, makes grand
the unadorned moment.
In Trethewey's verse, these women are wry and articulate, thoughtful, analytical, well aware of their circumstances and opportunities. ‘I'm not so foolish / that I don't know this photograph that we make / will bear the stamp of his name, not mine,� one says. How realistic it all is no one can say � certainly the faces in Bellocq's pictures suggest a variety of different responses and emotions whose range goes beyond even what can be captured in Trethewey's poems. Her writing sends you back to the photos, studying each subject anew, and thinking:
Imagine her a moment later—after
the flash, blinded—stepping out
of the frame, wide-eyed, into her life.
September 30, 2013
Years ago, I bought the original MOMA edition of this book. When the larger, more handsome Random House edition was published I bought it too, but my heart is with the earlier edition.
Haunting photos of a lost time and place. When I was reading Michael Oddaatje's Coming Through Slaughter, I would stop reading for a bit and look at some of the images in this book.
Haunting photos of a lost time and place. When I was reading Michael Oddaatje's Coming Through Slaughter, I would stop reading for a bit and look at some of the images in this book.
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October 12, 2012My copy from the NYPL had 8 plates ripped out, and the last two pages stuck together. I abhor damaging library books, but I'm also amused that someone was driven to these actions because of 1912 sexy ladies!
April 23, 2021
Το βιβλίο αυτό διατίθεται και ονλάιν αν και ένα βιβλίο φωτογραφίας δν έχει και πολύ νόημα αν δεν το έχεις στα χέρια σου.
Μολαταύτα είναι μια πολύ ωραία έκδοση απο το ΜοΜΑ με μια σειρά από τις πιο ενδιαφέρουσες φωτογραφίες του Bellocq.
Ψάξτε το!
Μολαταύτα είναι μια πολύ ωραία έκδοση απο το ΜοΜΑ με μια σειρά από τις πιο ενδιαφέρουσες φωτογραφίες του Bellocq.
Ψάξτε το!
November 28, 2014
Oh. My. Goodness.
I love this book. I love it. I love it. I love it.
When I worked at the Historic New Orleans Collection Williams Research Center, I would often take this book out of the library and look it at my desk when I didn't have any pressing work to do. Sometimes I would go up into the stacks and grab this book and hide and look at it when I did have work to do. Sometimes I would make copies of photos from this book on the Collection's fancy copier machines.
I always wanted my own copy of this book.
The photos are gorgeous. The photos are of Storyville prostitutes from the early days of the 20th century, looking all plump and prettied up. I loved the striped stockings and old time underwear. I wonder about those women. Where did they grow up? How did they end up in New Orleans? How did each one feel about being a prostitute?
As fascinating as it was to look at the women, I am maybe even more fascinated by the rooms in which they were photographed. There wasn't a lot of extra shown in those rooms. These were not women getting rich from selling their bodies. From the looks of these rooms they lived in, they seemed to be barely getting by.
The Brooke Shields movie Pretty Baby was based on these women and Bellocq himself.
I love this book. I love it. I love it. I love it.
When I worked at the Historic New Orleans Collection Williams Research Center, I would often take this book out of the library and look it at my desk when I didn't have any pressing work to do. Sometimes I would go up into the stacks and grab this book and hide and look at it when I did have work to do. Sometimes I would make copies of photos from this book on the Collection's fancy copier machines.
I always wanted my own copy of this book.
The photos are gorgeous. The photos are of Storyville prostitutes from the early days of the 20th century, looking all plump and prettied up. I loved the striped stockings and old time underwear. I wonder about those women. Where did they grow up? How did they end up in New Orleans? How did each one feel about being a prostitute?
As fascinating as it was to look at the women, I am maybe even more fascinated by the rooms in which they were photographed. There wasn't a lot of extra shown in those rooms. These were not women getting rich from selling their bodies. From the looks of these rooms they lived in, they seemed to be barely getting by.
The Brooke Shields movie Pretty Baby was based on these women and Bellocq himself.
June 26, 2019
Fascinating, surprisingly humane photos of turn-of-the-century Storyville sex workers. The varying states of disrepair - after Bellocq's death, the plates obviously weren't stored well for decades and many of the nudes have the faces crudely scratched off - contribute an otherworldly sense of distance to these pictures. These moments are lost forever and that's a reality impossible to escape here. Entropy creeps into the image from all sides, from chunks of the surface sloughed off and chipping, from splotches of emulsion stuck to other plates or pieces of cardboard, from the crude scrapes and the cracks and missing pieces. There's an air here you can see attempted by other artists (Joel-Peter Witkin comes to mind), but there's one thing their voyeuristic eyes don't quite have that Bellocq does. His sitters all have a very strong presence that's wholly their own, from the demure portraits that start the book to the explicit frontal nudes in back, all the women seem entirely aware of their presence at this point in time. Some seem resigned to their fates, some seem to enjoy their work, but there's something of them in every photo, something innate and true. Maybe it was Bellocq's stature as a virtually-unknown shipyard photographer with a tiny stature and an unfortunately-large head that gave him an outsider status, lent him some common ground with the women at the brothels. Maybe there was something about his more unassuming presence that set them more at ease than usual. But there's something special about these images beyond the usual objective glare of erotic photography. Sympathy.
April 4, 2018
An intriguing look into a different time.
The "conversation" before the actual pictures was... weird. I thought the part about the wallpaper was very interesting, but other than that, it seemed unnecessary and forced.
The "conversation" before the actual pictures was... weird. I thought the part about the wallpaper was very interesting, but other than that, it seemed unnecessary and forced.
April 18, 2022
This poignant collection of photography is truly beautiful. From the title and content, one would assume it to be a piece of amusing historical pornography, but instead it is a collection of indelible moments of time.
January 26, 2015
Una decina di giorni fa stavo perlustrando in lungo e in largo la sezione dei Remainders del sito Libraccio.it per approfittare della promozione (valida fino a domani 2 novembre) che li vedeva scontati del 65% sul prezzo di copertina. Fra i tanti titoli mi ha incuriosito questo, Storyville Portraits, che sicuramente a prezzo pieno (24 euro) non avrei mai acquistato, ma che per 8 euro e qualcosa ho messo nel carrello.
È un libro fotografico in cui è riprodotta una selezione dei ritratti scattati nel 1912 circa da E.J. Bellocq, fotografo sulla cui biografia si sa poco o nulla, di alcune prostitute che vivevano nei bordelli di New Orleans. Le lastre, che Bellocq in vita non ha mai sviluppato e sembra tenesse per sé, come oggetto personale, sono state fortunosamente recuperate alla fine degli anni cinquanta, sviluppate e infine pubblicate nel 1970 da Lee Friedlander. Il libretto (grande formato, ma poco meno di 100 pagine) si chiude proprio con la trascrizione, a cura di John Szarkowski (non so chi sia tutta questa gente, nomi noti nel mondo della fotografia, suppongo), di una conversazione tra Friedlander e alcuni anziani conoscenti di Bellocq, per tentare di gettare un po� di luce su questa figura “misteriosa�.
In ogni caso, come viene ricordato anche dai curatori, in fondo non interessa tanto l’artista e l’uomo Bellocq quanto le sue fotografie (ed è un peccato che un’altra sua serie, scattata nelle fumerie d’oppio del quartiere di Chinatown di New Orleans, sembri ormai perduta). Queste, pur essendo i soggetti spesso nudi o discinti, non sono di natura pornografica: al contrario, sembra, come sottolineato nell’introduzione di Susan Sontag, che fra le ragazze e il fotografo vi fosse un rapporto di fiducia, complicità, confidenza o persino amicizia, e quasi tutte di fronte all’obiettivo si mostrano tranquille, disponibili, persino giocose (alcune pose sono infatti talmente astruse che si pensa a uno scherzo, quasi l’avessero decisa insieme), comunque a proprio agio, come le due che posano sorridenti (e vestite) con in braccio i loro cagnolini.
Accanto a queste foto ve ne è un numero limitato di natura invece un po� inquietante in cui qualcuno (forse lo stesso Bellocq?), per motivi ignoti, ha cancellato le facce delle modelle: nemmeno queste sono pose particolarmente scabrose, eppure quei corpi nudi con, al posto del volto, una macchia nera sono gli unici casi in cui ritorna prepotentemente alla nostra memoria la condizione di sfruttamento spesso degradante in cui erano costrette queste donne.
3/5
È un libro fotografico in cui è riprodotta una selezione dei ritratti scattati nel 1912 circa da E.J. Bellocq, fotografo sulla cui biografia si sa poco o nulla, di alcune prostitute che vivevano nei bordelli di New Orleans. Le lastre, che Bellocq in vita non ha mai sviluppato e sembra tenesse per sé, come oggetto personale, sono state fortunosamente recuperate alla fine degli anni cinquanta, sviluppate e infine pubblicate nel 1970 da Lee Friedlander. Il libretto (grande formato, ma poco meno di 100 pagine) si chiude proprio con la trascrizione, a cura di John Szarkowski (non so chi sia tutta questa gente, nomi noti nel mondo della fotografia, suppongo), di una conversazione tra Friedlander e alcuni anziani conoscenti di Bellocq, per tentare di gettare un po� di luce su questa figura “misteriosa�.
In ogni caso, come viene ricordato anche dai curatori, in fondo non interessa tanto l’artista e l’uomo Bellocq quanto le sue fotografie (ed è un peccato che un’altra sua serie, scattata nelle fumerie d’oppio del quartiere di Chinatown di New Orleans, sembri ormai perduta). Queste, pur essendo i soggetti spesso nudi o discinti, non sono di natura pornografica: al contrario, sembra, come sottolineato nell’introduzione di Susan Sontag, che fra le ragazze e il fotografo vi fosse un rapporto di fiducia, complicità, confidenza o persino amicizia, e quasi tutte di fronte all’obiettivo si mostrano tranquille, disponibili, persino giocose (alcune pose sono infatti talmente astruse che si pensa a uno scherzo, quasi l’avessero decisa insieme), comunque a proprio agio, come le due che posano sorridenti (e vestite) con in braccio i loro cagnolini.
Accanto a queste foto ve ne è un numero limitato di natura invece un po� inquietante in cui qualcuno (forse lo stesso Bellocq?), per motivi ignoti, ha cancellato le facce delle modelle: nemmeno queste sono pose particolarmente scabrose, eppure quei corpi nudi con, al posto del volto, una macchia nera sono gli unici casi in cui ritorna prepotentemente alla nostra memoria la condizione di sfruttamento spesso degradante in cui erano costrette queste donne.
3/5
August 10, 2024
Storyville Prostitutes
Storyville was a legalized red light district in New Orleans that functioned beginning in 1897 until it was closed in 1917 under pressure from the military. In 1912, an obscure commercial photographer, E.J. Bellocq (1873 -- 1949) made a series of photographs of prostitutes working in Storyville. The photos were little-known until they were shown at an exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art in 1970. MOMA published a book of the photographs in 1970 that went out-of-print and was subsequently expanded in 1996 into this book, "Bellocq: Photographs from Storyville, The Red-Light District of New Orleans" which also appears to be now out-of-print. The book includes 52 of Bellocq's photographs as compared with the 34 of the MOMA volume and includes as well an introduction by Susan Sontag and interviews about Bellocq and his photos.
Bellocq seems to have taken these photos simply for himself but their origin remains unknown. The highly evocative photographs have come to symbolize Storyville. Bellocq's carefully posed photos show some of the women in full dress while others are nude. The photos manage to be both revealing of the character of their subjects and also enigmatic. They also allow a glimpse at the interiors of Storyville brothels, which have long been destroyed.
I recently revisited this book of Storyville prostitutes after many years. There is something fascinating about this place and its women. Bellocq's photos get inside his subjects and allow viewers to reflect upon the women and their lives.
Bellocq's photographs have a distant echo in the famous photographer Susan Meiselas' book "Carnival Strippers" which documents the women working in girlie shows in small New England carnivals in the early 1970s. These carnivals, like the Storyville brothels, are no more. As did Bellocq, Meiselas was able to win the trust of her subjects and to provide insight through her photography into their lives. Meiselas' book has been re-issued in several editions, most recently in "Carnival Strippers-- Revisited" (2022) which I have reviewed here on ŷ. Bellocq's and Meiselas' photographs capture something of the mysterious nature of human sexuality when it is commodified, but never lost.
Robin Friedman
Storyville was a legalized red light district in New Orleans that functioned beginning in 1897 until it was closed in 1917 under pressure from the military. In 1912, an obscure commercial photographer, E.J. Bellocq (1873 -- 1949) made a series of photographs of prostitutes working in Storyville. The photos were little-known until they were shown at an exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art in 1970. MOMA published a book of the photographs in 1970 that went out-of-print and was subsequently expanded in 1996 into this book, "Bellocq: Photographs from Storyville, The Red-Light District of New Orleans" which also appears to be now out-of-print. The book includes 52 of Bellocq's photographs as compared with the 34 of the MOMA volume and includes as well an introduction by Susan Sontag and interviews about Bellocq and his photos.
Bellocq seems to have taken these photos simply for himself but their origin remains unknown. The highly evocative photographs have come to symbolize Storyville. Bellocq's carefully posed photos show some of the women in full dress while others are nude. The photos manage to be both revealing of the character of their subjects and also enigmatic. They also allow a glimpse at the interiors of Storyville brothels, which have long been destroyed.
I recently revisited this book of Storyville prostitutes after many years. There is something fascinating about this place and its women. Bellocq's photos get inside his subjects and allow viewers to reflect upon the women and their lives.
Bellocq's photographs have a distant echo in the famous photographer Susan Meiselas' book "Carnival Strippers" which documents the women working in girlie shows in small New England carnivals in the early 1970s. These carnivals, like the Storyville brothels, are no more. As did Bellocq, Meiselas was able to win the trust of her subjects and to provide insight through her photography into their lives. Meiselas' book has been re-issued in several editions, most recently in "Carnival Strippers-- Revisited" (2022) which I have reviewed here on ŷ. Bellocq's and Meiselas' photographs capture something of the mysterious nature of human sexuality when it is commodified, but never lost.
Robin Friedman
February 23, 2023
Bellocq was a commercial, storefront photographer in New Orleans. Not a particularly successful one.
But he was one of those artists who chose for company the drinkers and junkies and especially the prostitutes of his city - and photographed them quite tenderly, as friends. I don't know what we think of people like Bellocq now - are they vital chroniclers who visit the lower circles for our edification, do they honour the people they meet there? Or are they just dirty old misogynists. Disreputable voyeurs?
I'm going to guess that if someone put on a big show of Bellocq's prostitutes now - like the one Friedlander and Szarkowski staged at MOMA in 1970 - it'd be a great controversy and that Twitter would be alive with disapproval of the old git and his enablers. Objectifying sex workers, effacing their conditions of work, glorifying exploitation.
The photographs argue otherwise. They are entrancing, humane, beautiful.
But he was one of those artists who chose for company the drinkers and junkies and especially the prostitutes of his city - and photographed them quite tenderly, as friends. I don't know what we think of people like Bellocq now - are they vital chroniclers who visit the lower circles for our edification, do they honour the people they meet there? Or are they just dirty old misogynists. Disreputable voyeurs?
I'm going to guess that if someone put on a big show of Bellocq's prostitutes now - like the one Friedlander and Szarkowski staged at MOMA in 1970 - it'd be a great controversy and that Twitter would be alive with disapproval of the old git and his enablers. Objectifying sex workers, effacing their conditions of work, glorifying exploitation.
The photographs argue otherwise. They are entrancing, humane, beautiful.
January 12, 2016
Beautifully printed, oversized full page repros of Bellocq's seminal photography of brothel women on 1912 Storyville, New Orleans. This includes introductory material of the story of the negatives, context by Susan Sontag and a conclusion roundtable of people that new, if only in passing, the mysterious photographer.
June 6, 2016
There isn't much to this book aside from the wonderful photographs which were expertly printed by Lee Friedlander (it's for the photographs that the book gets its five stars). The introduction by Sontag is more about Sontag than Bellocq; the interviews at the end are frustratingly sketchy and the interpolated comments by Szarkowski worse than useless.
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January 14, 2008Really great portraits by New Orleans photographer E.J. Bellocq. These glass negatives were found hidden in a drawer and have been painstakingly reprinted by the photographer Lee Friedlander. They are surprisingly candid portraits of prostitutes from New Orleans notorious Stoyville district.
August 1, 2016
Love it! This book is one of my most prized possessions.
See my review here: .
See my review here: .
October 20, 2008
Good historical photos from the new orleans red-light district circa 1912
April 19, 2010
Amazing.
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