RONNY JAQUES (1910 - 2008)

Jazz Portraits, 1940s, subjects include: Nat King Cole, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins
five gelatin silver prints, printed later
signed and titled in ink or pencil, with stamped photographer’s credit (verso)
each 14 x 11 in. (354 x 279 mm.)

[With:] Robert Morley, c.1947 and John O’Hara, c.1950s
two gelatin silver prints, printed later
signed and titled in ink, with stamped photographer’s credit (verso)
each 14 x 11 in. (354 x 279 mm.)

British-born photographer Ronny Jaques enjoyed a successful career as a staff photographer for New York magazines Harper’s Bazaar and Town & Country throughout the 1940s and 50s, often frequenting New York jazz clubs with his camera in his free time. His jazz portraits were published for the first time in the 2008 book Stolen Moments: The Photographs of Ronny Jaques by former editor of Town & Country Pamela Fiori. Very little has survived from Jaques portfolio. ‘His black and white negatives were lost by a printing house;’ notes Fiori, ‘his colour work mysteriously disappeared. That left a small collection of prints, and whatever tear sheets existed from the magazines to which he had contributed.’