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Alfred Cheney Johnston and the Artistry Behind the Ziegfeld Follies' Golden Era

Updated: Nov 29


I'm often blown away when I see work by an artist I'd never heard of before, I'm pleased to say it's a pretty much a daily occurance. But when I first set eyes on Alfred Cheney Johnston's work I couldn't believe the sheer quality and beauty of what I was looking at. They're the perfect mixture of a classical sculpture with touch of a renaissance pose, aided by the fact they were captured on large glass plates which gives them a flawless detailed look.


Vintage triptych: Left, seated woman with pearls; center, man in a suit with blue background; right, standing woman draped in fabric.
Alfred Cheney with two examples of his Ziegfeld Follies

Picture This, 1930s New York City

There was a time when beauty wasn’t filtered through a phone, but through the platinum shimmer of a glass negative. In the early decades of the twentieth century, photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston became the visual chronicler of an era obsessed with elegance, excess, and female glamour. Best known for his portraits of the Ziegfeld Follies showgirls, Johnston didn’t just take pictures, he sculpted beauty. His studio, tucked away in New York City, was a revolving door of dancers, actresses, and ingénues, all hoping to be captured in his signature soft-focus style that blended stage fantasy with classical portraiture.



Who Was Alfred Cheney Johnston?

Born in 1885 in New York, Johnston was raised in an environment that valued refinement and culture. After studying painting at the National Academy of Design, he shifted to photography, likely encouraged by the more stable professional prospects it offered. He graduated from Yale in 1908 and went on to establish his first studio in Manhattan. Johnston's academic background and painterly instincts bled into his photography, resulting in finely composed images that felt more like portraits than publicity shots.



By the 1910s, he had become the official photographer for Florenz Ziegfeld’s theatrical revue, the Ziegfeld Follies. Ziegfeld, ever the connoisseur of glamour and spectacle, entrusted Johnston to immortalise the carefully curated beauty of his performers, something he was clearly more than capable of achieving!



The Rise of the Ziegfeld Follies

The Ziegfeld Follies, running from 1907 to 1931, were more than just musical theatre, they were a visual feast. Inspired by the Folies Bergère in Paris, Ziegfeld's productions celebrated American femininity in all its stylised, corseted glory. The Follies showgirls were not just dancers; they were fashion models, icons, and symbols of an opulent, pre-Depression culture.


Johnston played a pivotal role in creating their visual mythology. His photographs were often the first (and sometimes only) record of these performers' brief but brilliant careers. The images featured elaborate costumes, sculptural poses, and a dreamlike aura that turned performers into semi-mythic figures.



Photography as Spectacle: Johnston’s Technical Craft

Johnston was a meticulous technician. He worked primarily with large-format view cameras and glass plate negatives, which allowed for incredible clarity and detail. His preferred medium, platinum prints, lent a soft grey tonal range that suited his aesthetic perfectly. His studio lighting was carefully controlled to create theatrical shadows and highlights, often mimicking the glamour of stage spotlights.


Importantly, Johnston's images blurred the line between high art and commercial portraiture. Some were overtly sensual, even nude, but always with a veneer of respectability. In an era of strict moral codes, he presented the female form not as scandalous but as something sculptural and idealised, a throwback to classical beauty.



The Women in Focus

Johnston photographed some of the most recognisable women of the early 20th century. Billie Burke, Ziegfeld's wife and later Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz, was one of his early muses. Other sitters included actresses like Barbara Stanwyck, Helen Henderson, and Marion Davies.

While many of his subjects are now lost to time, Johnston's images preserve their likenesses in a moment of poised confidence. These women, often in their teens or twenties, were projected into fame not just by performance but through image, Johnston's image.


In some portraits, the showgirls are clothed in feathered headpieces and crystal-beaded bodices; in others, they pose nude, draped in shadows or sheer fabrics. His approach never seemed lecherous. Instead, it was reverent, almost classical. He framed these women not as objects, but as embodiments of an aesthetic ideal.



Johnston’s Post-Follies Decline and Rediscovery

As tastes shifted and the Great Depression tightened its grip, the Ziegfeld Follies faded from public interest. Johnston’s star dimmed accordingly. He eventually moved out of New York and continued to take private portrait commissions, but the grand days of theatrical opulence had passed.

In the 1930s and 40s, Johnston donated many of his negatives to institutions such as the Library of Congress. For decades, his work sat largely forgotten, filed under the dusty categories of 'vaudeville' and 'stage photography.'


Only in the late 20th and early 21st centuries did historians and collectors begin to re-evaluate his legacy. Books like Jazz Age Beauties by Robert Hudovernik and exhibitions at photography museums brought Johnston's work back into the spotlight, highlighting the artistic merit and cultural significance of his oeuvre.



Interestingly, after Johnston’s death in 1971, a cache of nude and semi-nude portraits was discovered at his Connecticut farm. Many of these featured Ziegfeld showgirls in poses far more daring than what the public saw at the time. Speculation abounds as to whether these were private commissions for Ziegfeld himself or simply Johnston’s personal exploration of artistic freedom. Regardless of their origin, these images are now celebrated as bold works of art, challenging the boundaries of acceptable photography in their era.


The Great Depression and Changing Fortunes

The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression devastated Ziegfeld’s empire. The producer’s financial ruin and subsequent death in 1932 marked the end of an era for Johnston, who found himself struggling to adapt to a changing world. By the late 1930s, Johnston had relocated to a farm in Oxford, Connecticut, where he continued his photographic work on a smaller scale, converting a barn into a studio.



Though he briefly operated commercial studios in Connecticut in the 1940s and 1950s, Johnston never recaptured the prominence he had enjoyed during the Follies’ heyday. Nevertheless, he remained dedicated to his craft, continuing to use his beloved 11x14 camera to photograph a new generation of models.

Legacy and Rediscovery

In 1960, Johnston donated 245 prints to the Library of Congress, ensuring that his work would be preserved for future generations. This collection includes portraits of Follies showgirls, Broadway stars, and Hollywood legends, along with product advertisements showcasing Johnston’s versatility.



Following his death in a car accident in 1971, Johnston’s work faded into relative obscurity. However, in recent decades, his photographs have been rediscovered by collectors and enthusiasts, who admire their technical precision and artistic sophistication. Today, his images fetch high prices at auctions and are displayed in galleries, serving as a reminder of an era when beauty, glamour, and artistry converged on the stage and in front of Johnston’s lens.

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