Hawaiian Set: Part Six

From Series 79

Bill Robb

Helmut Riedmeier

Not Murray

Murray

Athletic Model Guild on display

The grounds of the Athletic Model Guild campus are such a feature of AMG photography that I thought it would be interesting to look at early studio images to see when and how it was introduced. 

Since Bob Mizer did not immediately leave his studio to work outside, it is unsurprising that the first months of AMG production feature some identifiable interior features, like the flooring in Mizer’s office. Most of the early interiors are dressed to obscure their individuality, though: they could be anywhere.

The earliest exterior sessions were published in albums and catalogues D, F, and G. The first AMG settings I can confidently identify appear in Album ZQ (July 1950) and the ZP catalogue (initially published in June 1950; the photos of Bob Schwartz were likely published later). In any case, the images — of what is today sometimes called “Mount Mizer” — are not particularly notable, save as the earliest AMG exteriors.*

Indeed, the remaining album and catalogue photos of Leonard Chambers, Henry Lenz, and Ed Holovchik [Ed Fury] also utilize Mount Mizer. Up through late 1951, then, Bob Mizer published no images of the Athletic Model Guild campus as we would come to know it … other than the ubiquitous Mount Mizer itself, which could be undressed as bare concrete or dressed in seasonal costume.

I will pull together some later images where AMG becomes its own focus.

*I should really add that there are a quantity of earlier album and catalogue images of exterior settings, perhaps at AMG, but they lack any sort identifiable features: one sun drenched stucco wall resembles another.

Hawaiian Set: Part Five

Stan Ridley

Tom Richards

Mike Richards

Du Bois at AMG

Don Reyes

Robert Rex

Roger Ravelle

Hawaiian Set: Part Four

“Drought” from “Look at America” (1930)

Maurice Bennett “Lefty” Flynn (1892-1959) in “Omar the Tentmaker”

Virginia Brown Faire (Virginia Cecelia Labuna, 1904-1980) and Guy Bates Post (1875-1968) in “Omar the Tentmaker”

Nigel De Brulier (Francis George Packer, 1877-1948) in “Omar the Tentmaker” (1922)

Gus and Will in Frank Cambria’s “On With the Dance”

J’adore Fred

Images from distinct print runs

Fred Regan Day

On the AMG campus

Hawaiian Set: Part Three

Why so coy?