E. O. Hoppé

Emil Otto Philipp Hoppé (1878–1972) was a celebrated portrait and travel photographer, based in London. Born in Munich, he moved to London in 1900 to follow a career in banking, but soon developed a keen interest in photography. In 1903 he became a member of the Royal Photographic Society, and was associated with the Linked Ring Brotherhood, whose members included Alvin Langdon Coburn, Henry Peach Robinson and George Davidson. In 1907 he opened a studio in Baron's Court, collaborating with E. F. Griffin, and in 1909 co-founded the London Salon of Photography. Success followed and in 1911 he opened his own studio in Baker Street, moving from there in 1913 to the larger and more fashionable Millais House in South Kensington. His many sitters included leading figures from the arts, politics and society – members of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, H. G. Wells, T. S. Eliot, George Bernard Shaw, Lloyd George, the Royal Family and others. 1 In 1920 he photographed Mackintosh. 2 In 1914 Hoppé became art editor of the newly established magazine, Colour and in 1917 was a founding member, along with the Mackintoshes, of 'The Plough', an amateur theatre group based in Chelsea.

He opened a studio in New York in 1921. During the 1920s and 1930s he travelled extensively throughout the world photographing different countries and cultures. His many publications include Studies from the Russian Ballet (1913), The Book of Fair Women (1922), Picturesque Great Britain (1926), Romantic America (1927), Australia (1930), and his autobiography Hundred Thousand Exposures: The Success of a Photographer (1945). His later years were spent away from the public eye, and he died virtually forgotten in 1972. Recent efforts have established the E. O. Hoppé Estate Collection (www.ehoppe.com), which has done much to reassert his achievements.