Felix Photo Fun – 2 for 1 Today

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Thus far 2023 has been a very Felix year here at Pictorama and especially noteworthy in photos, if I do say so myself. While this Felix picture roll may wrap pretty soon, it is a stormy Saturday here after a long enervating week in Manhattan and contemplating this particularly perky card seems the most cheerful today.

This is an especially wonderful Felix they are posing with here – big enough to be a small person in a costume. (The first time I saw one of these cards I thought that might be possible!) He has very nice, big, pointy ears and was designed with extra long arms which he wraps around the two little girls, very chummy! His bow is untied and a tad bedraggled, and admittedly there is something particularly buck-tooth about his usual sewn-on toothy grin.

*Just a bit of a tease of the area over Kim’s desk I am referring to here.*

The oldest of the three (I will take a guess on the baby) girls is the one dressed most beach ready casual, the other two are a bit more dressed up. I love the oldest girl’s sort of wild fly away hair. They look enough alike that I will declare them sisters. The card was never mailed and nothing is written on the back. There is a bit of white paint on the lower left corner, but it is hard to see it if you aren’t holding it in your hand.

This card has the unusual distinction of being the first I think I have ever purchased from a US dealer. All of my other posing with Felix cards have come from Britain, Australia or New Zealand. Having said that, I have no doubt that despite having found itself for sale in Florida that it was taken in Britain, as you will see below.

As I sat here in my early morning bleary-eyed state, my attention fell on a card on the wall, hovering over the computer, where I have tucked a few Felix photos on a wall that is largely devoted to film stills, a few lobby cards for early Westerns, and various other early 8″x10″ photos. I could see immediately that this card (which somehow I have not devoted an earlier post to) is a rather stunningly precise location match for the new one. Wowza!

*Regretfully this one wasn’t making the trip out of the frame today! Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.*

The very same long-arm Felix seems to be reaching around these three-of-a-kind kids, those in their matching togs, glorious striped beach dresses, on the ends (note the alternating sock colors) and the odd fellow out in the middle. Felix is sans bow here and one ear is askew, but there is not doubt that he’s our fellow.

If we had any doubt about the location, the distinctive windows and even the light is so similar in the photos; that is what caught my eye first. A closer look reveals the same space below the white board building. I’m not sure I have any reason for assigning it as such, but my thought is Brighton.

While on a roll for guessing, although it is somewhat less absolutely a match, I offer another photo from my collection. I think a fair argument could be made for this prize pic having been taken at the same location based on Felix, the white board exterior and the light. Thoughts? (I wrote about this very favorite photo from my collection in a post here.) I must have had this thought before because they were hanging together.

The more recently purchased photo is smaller in proportion by several inches, 4″x5″ rather than 5″x7″. I wonder if their tracking number at the lower left is truly chronological – N5252 and N7130 – which would make the triplets the later one. (And the gentlemen in front of the photo establishment much earlier than either.) Presumably these numbers, which appear in some form on all these sort of day at the beach posing photos, were used to tie out the negative to the appropriate party so the photo could be sent to the correct person. Unlike tintypes, which were usually developed in real time in a soupy bath of hypo, I have always assumed that developing and printing the postcards took at least a nominally longer time.

Clearly multiple cards could have been ordered and printed of these real photo postcards. However, I have yet to come across two originals of the same card – although in my collection I have a few cases where multiple single tintype images were taken at the same time and saved together. I have always imagined that the postcards were mailed and arrived a few weeks later, a pleasant reminder of the day at the beach or the vacation, but perhaps why duplicates didn’t seem to be bothered to be made.

The pot of coffee I put on has finished and the sky is looking like it may clear (although still dubious), so Saturday is officially kicked off here at Pictorama. Tomorrow I will pick up from New Jersey.

With Love & Kisses for Your Birthday

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Yep, today is a Happy Birthday to me post and I have been saving this card for a bit to share on my birthday. I stumbled across it for sale on Etsy while searching Google for something else Felix related and scooped it up. Like almost all of my Felix photo cards it arrives at our US shores from Britain. It has inspired a bit of stretch of the imagination post today – hang on for the ride and enjoy.

This card is inscribed on the back, but not mailed. In a clear hand it reads, To My Chicken Wishing you many Happy returns of the day from Grandad & Grandmas XX. Perhaps it was mailed in an envelope or included with a gift.

The poem on the front reads, If this toy could speak I’m sure he’d say “Many Happy Returns of the day”; He’d love to join in your romps and fun To make your Birthday a joyous one. Felix appears to hold her and and she is looking affectionately at him. (Were it me I would probably be more excited at the prospect of a birthday romp with Felix and at least given him a big hug!)

This birthday Felix card has a slightly higher production value than most of the posing with Felix cards I own (for new friends, one example can be found in a post here), which are the product of itinerant Felix photographers and seaside photo studios and therefore sometimes of mixed results. The hand color tinting, which gives this little girl a nice pink dress. A yellow floor turns her Mary Janes almost gold and some blond added to her hair gives a nice contrast. They went the extra mile and gave a blue detail to her collar and cuffs. Felix’s sepia brown (the underlying color) may have a bit of the yellow in it too.

*Princess Yvonne, can’t say she didn’t take this photo! Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.*

It’s a bit hard to see, but the edges of the card are raised in a floral relief – a bit grimy now. It took some magnified looking, but the credit at the bottom left of the photo made me raise my eyebrow, in tiny type it reads Photo by P’cess Yvonne. A search of P’cess or Princess doesn’t turn up much (although who could resist looking), but it did toss out this signed photo below, of Princess Yvonne. Aka Mary Ellen Norris she performed a magic and mind-reading act with her husband, Doc Irving who signed it as well. It’s a stretch but I am going to pretend that she took this photo. (Unlikely, but because it is my birthday and because I can.)

Not identified as either part of the Wedding series by Louis Wain (looks like the wedding night to me though!) and also not identified as by Beagles, but also likely – not to mention entertaining! Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

Meanwhile, Beagles & Company, the noted maker of the card, was a well-known photo postcard producer in Britain. The founder, John Beagles (1844-January 1907), had already died and the eponymous company passed into other hands by the time this card was made. The company was one of the prime real photo postcard producers, but also published some of Louis Wain’s cat postcards – all as noted in a brief Wikipedia entry.

In a cursory search I could not find more cards photographed by P’cess Yvonne, although many of the portrait ones seemed to be photographed by a Rita Martin. (I will also choose to imagine that Beagles photo postcards were largely produced by an enclave of women photographers. Indulge me please.)

Kim (who is currently hard at work producing the annual Valentine slated for grand reveal next Saturday!) and I are zipping off to a fun filled day which will include an exhibit of pop-up advertising and another of wall paper at the Grolier Club and maybe some poking around the flea market too. Pam’s Pictorama Birthday Post Part Two tomorrow!

Felix at the Chelsea Arts Ball

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Recently I have been in the midst of chasing down the remains of a Felix postcard collection, but this one popped up on its own from a different source in the middle of it. Felix on parade could be a real sub-genre of Felix photo collecting. Unlike the photo postcards of folks posing with Felix which hail exclusively from Britain, Australia and New Zealand, the parade photos are as often from the US. While many seem to be variations on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloons, the best of them are from small parades elsewhere in the county. (Some of these previous examples can be found in posts here and here. Some of the photos from those posts are pictured below.) However, it has been a long time since one has come up for purchase. Hang onto your hats though folks – I think this is an interesting one.

Today’s comes to Pictorama from Great Britain and celebrates the Chelsea Arts Ball. The card was never sent. The only information printed on the back is Pathe Freres Cinema Ltd. Series Copyright. It turns out to be the 1922 edition of the ball. A bit of further research reveals that the design was overseen that year by artist Fred Leist and the theme (somewhat ironically as I write now in 2021) was Brighter London 100 years Hence. (I am thinking another worldwide pandemic was not on his mind at the time having just lived through the 1918 one.) That year the revelers danced to the Ceadon-West Orchestra, noted as a Big Band, but I cannot find many traces of them online.

Meanwhile, the Chelsea Arts Ball dates back to 1891, as far as I can tell from a brief history on the website of the club, (found here – and note the image of Felix on the side of their building in the photo!) having grown out of a tradition of fancy dress parties in the studios of artists in the 1880’s. It was meant to rival the already established Arts Club of Mayfair. (A side note that women were not admitted for membership in the Chelsea Arts Club until 1968!) The balls typically seemed to take place over New Year’s and/or Mardi Gras and eventually settled in at the Royal Albert Hall as a venue for a decades long run until the 1958 one was so raucous (Wikipedia sites, rowdiness, nudity and public homosexuality – which was illegal at the time – as what caused the ousting) that the ball was banned from the venue for the next 30 years. If I understand correctly, I believe that the party tradition continued until December of 2020 when, for Covid reasons, it was banned. The parties have been held at the site of the club at 143 Church Street in recent years.

The hope had been to rival the French equivalent, the Bal des Quat’s’Arts established in 1892, I gather a similar soiree produced by architecture students there. They achieved their goal and the Chelsea Arts Ball grew to be extravagant affairs with a hundred performers, lavish decor and thousands of participants who partied until dawn when breakfast was served. It was, according the the Chelsea Arts Club website, the centerpiece of London society. I will also credit them with providing the quote, The mere mention of the Chelsea Arts Ball would make the debutante blush and the dowager blench. Lady Muriel Beckwith, 1936. It leaves me with questions about the participants – had the ball left its roots among artists and become a fête only of the wealthy? Or was it an event that embraced both, high and low brow so to speak?

*Felix stereocard. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.*

Each ball was punctuated by a parade at midnight – presumably we are seeing some sort of a dry run here with a photo taken during a misty day and used for promotional purposes. There is no real indication, London weather being what it is, if this was a Mardi Gras or New Year’s version. While seemed to me that it is a New Year’s version, no hint of spring in this photo, research shows that this ball was held on February 8 of 1922 – still very cold, and a bit early for Mardi Gras. Very chilly for those short dresses! Somehow the gray mistiness of it adds to the appeal and creates the right atmosphere in this photo.

And oh what a photo is it is! A giant paper-mâché Felix with a distinctly worried look (hands behind his back in the Felix Thinking Position) hovers over this bevy of women in short white dresses – it is hard to see their masks but I believe they are little birds; I think I see beaks! They are cute little white fluffy skirts however, with ruffles and a bow. As noted, they are not warmly dressed. The dancers are being herded by Felix costume clad men. These gents are also in charge of Felix’s movement and he is balanced (precariously?) on a sort of dolly. Felix appears to have three of these escorts. A few folks are onlookers, as they are largely men and hard to see them clearly.

The real scoop here is that film exists of the pre-ball parade shown on this card. It can be found on the British Pathe website. However a superior and decidedly longer version exists on Youtube and can be found here or below. This one goes on to show the assembled costumed performers and even some of the individual wild costumes that could be found. The Felix men and white dressed women join hands and dance around Felix in a delightful fashion!

An interesting and somewhat moving account of the party given to celebrate the end of WWI, also found on the Chelsea Arts Club site, describes it as the most famous one, held on March 12, 1919. It used the concept of Dazzle, the Navy camouflage process which owed its roots to Cubism and Vorticists. (Okay, I had to look that up – Vorticistism was a brief industrial influenced abstract art movement of the pre-War teens in Britain – one of my facts for the day!) Dazzle is described as a visible expression of jazz syncopation. Here they were in 1922, a few short years later, wondering what the next hundred years would bring.

*Another photo related to the ball, from the Royal Albert Hall website.*

Felix and the Seashore

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I always like to say it is an especially wonderful day when one of these photo postcards finds its way home to the Pictorama collection! Long time readers know that my nascent collection of these photos inspired this blog as an activity while bed bound after foot surgery many years ago. I added toys from my collection and it grew like topsy from there. Still, nothing makes my pulse race like coming across one of these – by their very nature each is different of course. I am like a kid about these and I believe passionately that I should, quite simply, own all of them. (There are obviously many earlier posts about these. A couple can be seen here and here.) Woe be to the person who tries to get in my way!

That these cards exist at all is a sort of a miracle. On beaches across the United Kingdom and a handful of places in New Zealand and Australia, folks paid to pose with Felix dolls ranging from just large to that of a good size child. Somehow here in the United States, his place of origin, it never caught on and so it is the world of the internet that allowed me to amass my collection. They were however routinely saved as photo souvenirs. Most, like this one, were never mailed and remain more pristine as a result.

This particular card features these two women who are wonderfully fashionable. My internet friends, especially those in Britain who deal in vintage clothing, can probably date this pretty accurately from what they are wearing, but the late twenties or early thirties I would think. (Any thoughts wassailantiques.com?) I love that women would be dressed so nicely for a day of seaside enjoyment and it makes me think of boardwalks, cool drinks and salt air – cotton candy and saltwater taffy – and most of all my beach-y childhood. I always sort of like that in these photos people generally stomp around on the sand without worry for their shoes or clothes – men in suits, women in lovely cotton or linen dresses.

Part of one of those comfy beach chairs can be seen to one side and somehow they are perfectly designed for reading a book and napping. I always used to fall asleep at the beach, stretched out face down on a towel. Must have be the sound of the water and the warm sand. I always brought a book but usually didn’t read much. Can’t say the number of times I woke to find that I had parked myself too close to the water and suddenly the rising tide found its way to me and my possessions which were suddenly floating around me. The beach has always immediately relaxed me and I think my attachment to walking by the East River daily gives me a bit of that these days.

This Felix is among the smaller, but not smallest of those who worked this beat. The women have gotten into the spirit of the photo, throwing their arms around his shoulders like an old friend. Felix has a natty bow and one leg off to the side gives him a sense of animation. He too is enjoying his role center stage.

The bobbed hair of these young women is another indicator of the years this image falls within. They feel very up to the moment for the fashion of the day, visibly pleased with the knowledge that they look good. The photographer has captured them nicely. With their ascending order of heads, they (along with Felix) form a good composition in the middle of the picture – Felix has one errant ear up which adds to his always roguish charm. The people in the background are all blurred, but they also add to the festive sense of the day in their different beach and swim garb. There are folks wading and swimming and it is a busy and glorious day. I think I would dearly love to join them.

Flat Felix Prop

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: For experienced Pictorama readers it is known that this sort of a Felix photo find represents a good day here at Deitch Studio. Although these are technically one of a kind photos, I admit this one was so similar to another in my possession that I double checked to make sure somehow there wasn’t a second copy or version. But no, remarkably it is the same Felix and background, presumably the very same studio, but a different small child.

In poking around for this post I have found yet another in my possession, of two men this time, which seems to be the same Felix, but a different background. There’s yet another in this genre which seems remarkably similar, but Felix has his arms in a different position and the background is different.

Was sure that this was the same location, but Felix has his arm up here and the background is different. Pams-Pictorama.com

It has to be noted that this studio produced a lousy photograph. Kim has juiced the contrast on this, but as a group they are poorly developed, probably not washed properly, and therefore have faded. It is crooked across the bottom as if the negative was torn somehow before printing. (The other one from this studio also has a crooked bottom – it was clearly an ongoing issue!)

Like most of these, this card was never mailed and there are no notes on the back. Based on my other photos I believe that this was taken at Blackpool. (I admit that this is frequently noted by sellers, but there is no actual evidence that supports the idea that Blackpool was indeed the particular seaside town that this, and the others, originated from.) Unlike most of my photos of folks, young and adult alike, posing with stuffed, oversized versions of Felix these children are less than jolly.

The little girl has slipped her hand into the crux of Felix’s arm, but (much like the other photos of same) she does not look the least bit happy about it; she is almost reluctant. This off-model Felix does look a tad lascivious admittedly though. She is dressed up for the occasion it seems, over-sized bow in her hair, ruffly dress, neat socks and mary-janes clad feet. There is a bit of flotsom on the floor behind Felix, a somewhat tatty studio we can’t help but feel. Still, I can’t help but imagine I would have been grinning from ear to ear, given the chance to have my photo taken, arm and arm with Felix.

If you want to stroll through the whole series of similar Felix photos click on any of the following titles: Flat Felix Photo Finale, Installment 3; Blackpool, Felix Cutout Continued; Economical Felix; Felix Photo, the Cut-outs, Part 1.

I am inspired now to assemble all of these photos and get them up on the wall this weekend. They have earned a place of their own on the Felix wall of fame here.

Fine Print

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This is a Felix photo post only in the most technical sense. If you look carefully at the somewhat riotous print of the child’s outfit, you’ll discover scores of Felix-es marching up and down it, his tail in the ? and walking/thinking positions alt. I had high hopes that the little tin pail would be the Felix toffy one I have (and which I wrote about in a post which can be found here: Score), but sadly it is a non-Felix design. I am not sure about the stick the little boy is holding – my thought is that it is either a sort of carnival cane or a toy fishing pole? This kid was put in his most festive bib and tucker for this photo.

Mom and Dad are not exactly in beach attire, despite being perched on folding wooden beach chairs of their day. Dad has a full three piece suit and bow-tie and Mom in a dressy blouse with a scarf and skirt. All three are wearing industrial strength socks/stockings and heavy shoes that seem the antithesis of beach leisure wear, certainly by our standards today. Did they leave the photo studio and head down to the boardwalk? I think it is likely – the British of the period often seem to be in full holiday attire when visiting their beaches at this time.

The backdrop behind them is a fairly riotous beach backdrop of bathers and revelers, a large building I am guessing is a hotel, hovers over all. An arcade and boardwalk is shown, forever frozen in a painting depicting folks sailing and enjoying the beachy shore. This image is a photo postcard, although printed on flimsier stock than usual, nothing is written on it and it was never mailed, although much handled over the years.

The back of the card, which is frankly filthy, has some faded type which (when examined with magnified) appears to state, Oydes Photo Studios 50 Strand WC 20 High Street Southend Great Yarmouth & Branches. Not surprisingly, I guess, this turned up nothing much when I searched, except to see a (very) few photos of the thriving beach resort this once was during this period, with a sort of Atlantic City feel to it.

A period postcard showing the bathing pool at Great Yarmouth is shown below. It is enormous! While I think maybe some of the City pools here in the five boroughs of New York might be this large, I have never been in one or seen one in person this big. I wonder if it was filled with sea water rather than fresh?

Not unlike Atlantic City, this shore town also seems to have ultimately been turned over to casinos, and little of its boardwalk and arcade seem to have survived to the present day, at least from what I can find.

In the many photographs I have purchased and written about I am often struck by strong family resemblances among those posed. This is remarkably not the case here – I wonder if this is perhaps someone else’s child. They are happily posed, regardless of familial status.

As is frequently the case, these beachside photos (others for future posts are awaiting your enjoyment), bring me back to the seaside town where I grew up and long summer afternoons and evenings there, trying to win at pinball, whack-a-mole and other equally sophisticated games. The boardwalk at places like Long Branch and Asbury Park were already in decline by the time I was old enough to enjoy them – the one in Long Branch eventually burning down, maybe when I was in college or shortly after. I am sorry to report that there are no known photos of me at the Pier, perhaps because we usually went at night. (It was also a time which required film and we didn’t constantly take photos with our phones.) I knew I was catching the tail end of some kind of history even then though, and enjoyed every cotton candy filled minute of it.

Temporary Toys

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Lately I have been considering some photos that require looking closely to find Felix. This one I recently purchased on eBay and if we look carefully a lucky little kid has been handed a nice Felix doll to hold. Felix is sporting a huge bow which for me is a bit of a giveaway that he is a prop rather than a beloved object, dragged into the photo. The card is in excellent shape, was never mailed and has nothing written on the back. It came from Great Britain.

While borrowed finery in clothing dates back to early portraits, photos of children have often depended on toys on hand to quiet a child and add something to the proceedings. I have speculated previously that more than once it must have been hard to separate a small child from a prop toy handed over for a photo. (I can assure you I would have put up a fight if they handed me that Felix and then wanted it back – I’ll just say I would!)

Although this youngster clutching Felix looks like s/he is enjoying him or herself I don’t see an argument brewing over its return. (I’m stuck on whether that one is a boy or a girl – I was strongly leaning boy until I looked at the shoes, Mary Janes, and now I am leaning girl. Therefore for the purpose of this post I will say girl.) None of these children look as though they are the type to revolt.

These three are clearly siblings with an unusually strong family resemblance. Unlike many of the photos I collect, which strongly suggest seaside spur of the moment appeal, this one appears to have been a less fly by night studio than most. It is a photo postcard, but these children appear to be dressed for the occasion, the little girls’ hair curled to perfection and the boy’s also just so. Everything about the set up a tad more upscale and in sort of good taste.

However, the small girl is perched on a splendidly faux rock, as if at the shore, sailboat at her feet – clearly a toy that has been little played with. I don’t know why, but this poor imitation of a boulder appeals to me. The top has been nicely flattened for a seat. The background is a wuzzy, cloudy affair.

Perhaps it was being the daughter of a photographer, but like the cobbler’s children who went without shoes, my family rarely posed for a group photo and other than our requisite school photos and prom pics, never had professional photos taken. Maybe in reality most families don’t – I will let others weigh in on that. Ours was not a sit on Santa’s lap or line up at Sears for a photo family however.

Ultimately, this family did such a nice job with this photo that all these decades later it, with its small Felix doll, has earned a spot in the Pictorama collection.

Hitting the Wall: Part One

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Living in a studio apartment there is no way that all of my carefully curated photo collection could all ever find life on the wall here. For those of you who have never had the chance to visit us (the majority of you, to say the least), you may have wondered (or not) about which make the cut and what is up on the walls here. I had not given it more thought than the average person until the Covid craze for Zoom calls commenced. These days our photo laden walls are the subject of some discussion by meeting attendees and other video visitors. It has been intimated that guessing what is behind me has become something of a pastime, much like staring out a window in a meeting, when bored.

Blackie on my chair recently. He and Cookie love this seat and fight me for this chair all day everyday.

Lucky waving kitty who usually lives on a shelf in my office.

A few months ago I shared details in a post about setting up a new base of operations for my daily grind now taking place here in the apartment. (I wrote a bit about the new work set-up here at Deitch Studio in a post that can be found here.) I spend much of my day now, directly behind Kim, utilizing an old drawing table of mine which I frankly haven’t bothered to clear off entirely. At this moment on my desk I can spy: the Halloween cat head from last week’s post; a hand woven bowl from my trip to South Africa last fall; and two waving lucky money cats. (A post about my lucky cat habit can be found here. I brought the second one back from the office recently, concerned he wasn’t getting any light and helping to make Jazz at Lincoln Center more money – we need it!) And lastly, a photo of the costume jewelry designer, Kenny J. Lane.

My photo of Kenny J. Lane, taken by Eileen Travell and a gift from her.

Ken was an honorary board member of the Met. Sadly he died shortly after I left for Jazz at Lincoln Center. He had been very ill, but nonetheless I was very sad I had not had a chance to see him and so my friend Eileen Travell gave me a very lovely photo she had taken of him for a magazine story several years ago. It sits in my office at work on a shelf above me, where I like to find Kenny looking down at me. I found I missed him and retrieved it as well on my recent trip to the office.

From that admittedly choatic table I do my much of my daily work. (Although recently while Kim is working on laying out a new story I have taken a number of Zoom calls on a corner of our bed, set up with my enormous Dean’s Rag Co. Mickey Mouse looming over me, backlit despite having been told it is a bad effect. A post devoted to big Mickey and his acquisition can be found here. A surprisingly few people have commented on him actually.)

Although I have pledged that I will devote some posts to the most popular view and what is contained there, the space above Kim and his work table, which does contain many of our finest specimens, today however I start with a bit of wall that folks don’t see, but one which will disappear soon. Technically it isn’t actually a wall, but the side of bookcase which for many years has held these photos and is where many years worth of calendars have been kept.

Anyway, I have been encouraged to document the wall decoration a bit and I start with this, which has been my view at the foot of Kim’s table where I have written this blog from, for many years because in a couple of weeks it will disappear. After many months delay, soon we will pack up a bunch of stuff (yep, again) and make room for an entire wall of bookcases. This was the next stage of renovating our tiny abode which was scheduled to happen a few months after recovering from the kitchen renovation, but which has been long delayed by the quarantine.

The installation of bookcases and cabinets along the entire wall will hopefully relieve some of the ever-looming piles of books, art, dvd’s, and yes, photographs and even toys, that are currently like topsy everywhere. It does mean that the existing, scattered bookcases will depart including this one. For some reason it only just occurred to me, the other night at 1:30 AM when I couldn’t sleep and decided to worry about things for awhile, that this sliver of bookcase would be gone soon, replaced by my work table moving into that spot after it is displaced by the new bookcases. Where will the calendar go? And the paint pole we use for exercising?

The bottom two images are strange favorites – Halloween photos from a Brooklyn parade in 1917, which I purchased in multiple separate lots but of the same gathering when examined closely. I did an early post about them, back in 2014, which can be found here. I find them unfailingly cheerful and of continued interest.

Lurking above these are two nice examples of photo postcards of Felix at the beach. Pictorama readers know these are like catnip to me and these two examples have been featured previously in posts, here and here.

Photo featured in All in the Family, a January, 2018 post.

Featured in Felix and the Gang, a 2016 post.

Not in danger of are several real photo postcards of people posing with giant black cats, the corner of some sheet music, and a few other gatherings with Felix at the beach. Those will have their due in a future post, as I go around the room. There is also the top of an ancient mirror that came from my grandparents house, oddly hinged, and weighing far more than you would imagine.

Somehow I manage to be both the necessary agent for change here at Deitch Studio (the bookcases, like the kitchen renovation, are my idea) and still panic about it. I have a cat-like dislike of change and wrestle with the need at times – check in with me at 3:00 am in the coming week. As we start to pack up bookcases and hopefully even shed a few things starting next weekend, I hope I can quell my fear of having to find a new place for these beloved photos, the paint pole, and a heavy metal door jam in the shape of a black cat you don’t see in this photo but is directly below. There will be a week or so of upheaval, hopefully resulting in a few more feet for exercise and reveal part of another bookcase I have not been able to access for several years. Wish us luck with the bookcases and more to come on that I bet!

Find Felix in the Photo

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: It is always a very fine day at Pictorama when a Felix photo postcard wanders in the door. Of course one never knows when an opportunity to purchase one will occur, and never have I seen one for sale outside of eBay with the exception of the one (rather glorious) occasion when someone contacted me via this site to sell me a cache of them directly. (This rather interesting tale can be found here.) This is a photo postcard and it was never mailed, nothing is written on the back.

Arguably, I probably like the shots of larger Felix dolls and one or a couple of folks gathered around him. I have long had an affinity for people posing at carnivals or seaside with Felix. (I’m also partial to people posing with moon cut-outs – folks just brought a special energy to those photo moments in life – photos being a bit more rarified in the pre-phone camera days. An early post with a moon photo can be found here.)

Pams-Pictorama.com collection

As I study today’s photo I have to wonder if it is an extended family gathering or one of another nature. Somehow all the women dressed in white have migrated to one side of the photo, the arches of an arcade coincidentally creating a greater visual division – somehow their white hats bob into the black spaces just right. As a group, the women are largely hat wearing, while of course their beach attire would qualify as cocktail wear in our more casual day. (And I refer to our day in general, not these bunker life days when we rarely get out of sweats and wear trousers with buttons it seems. A dress that requires ironing seems like something from another age indeed.)

Children clad in a variety of modes line up in front , a few brave swim togs, but most also tend toward dresses, hats and one little guy even has a tie. The bright prints of the girl’s dresses are a relief to all the white. The men are darkly suited up – a minimum of tie and vest. The gentleman wearing a suit in front is also sporting a very large rolling pin and of course the meaning of or reason for that is lost to us now. Two girls near him appear to have some sort of canes or croquet mallets or the like. A series of flag poles draw our eye up and back to some delightful looking buildings on a nearby bluff.

It is possible to miss Felix at first. He blends surprisingly well with the kids all around him, a bit short perhaps, but one of the gang. However, he poses dead center in the group so eventually he emerges into our consciousness. Once I saw him, it became a Felix photo and it has earned a place in the collection here at Pictorama.

Economical Felix

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: If you are by chance a newbie to Pictorama, you may not know that photos of people posing with Felix (stuffed ones larger than an average child, people clutching the toy form of him) make up the depth of my ever-growing collection. Even I do not entirely understand my endless fascination with these photos, but I absolutely have yet to see one I wasn’t anxious to add to my collection.

This aforementioned collection adorns the walls here at Deitch Studio – photo postcards climbing up the wall near the kitchen, across from where I sit and write at this moment, more by the front door and tintypes and assorted others near the bathroom where they get the least light of all. Kim is including some in the drawings for his next book – the one that he’s working on now that will come out after Reincarnation Stories later this year. Even I amaze at the tiny renderings of these photos in fine Deitchien style. They were giving him the devil’s own time this week, but I think they look great! I am always pleased and excited to have a nod to Pictorama in the wider Deitch Studio endeavors. (Incidentally, the pre-order on Amazon for Reincarnation Stories can be found here – always good to plug the family product.)

My collecting of these photos has long outstripped our ability to display them in our tiny apartment, but it has not impacted my desire to continue to acquire them – frankly not in the least. In fact, one of the great pleasures of this blog endeavor is to be able to look through the posts and be reminded of the photos tucked away – reminded of photos I have not seen in awhile. It was my original intention to use this blog to organize these photos – as well as the the other cat photos I have collected, including people posing with giant stuffed black cats, sometime astride them – such as seen here. I can’t really say this blog has organized anything, however I would still like to see that happen – it would be so much fun to be able to leaf through a fat book of my collection. I suppose every collector feels that way though. (Sigh.)

Today’s photo, a recent acquisition, represents a bit of a sub-genre. Somewhere in Britain, enterprising photographers who couldn’t be bothered to acquire a large, stuffed rendition of Felix appear to have made their own wooden cut-outs of him for posing, propped up with something that looks like a third leg or a second tail in each. Today’s addition appears to be the very same (or remarkably similar) Felix as another I featured in December of 2016 in a series of these so-called Flat Felix photos. (The post can be found here. The other two posts about these are found here and here.) However, the backdrop is decidedly different as you can see. The seller of the card of the two men identified it as located in Blackpool, England.

There was evidently a proliferation of these fellows. I throw in a third, flat Felix, for additional comparison below. If I had to draw a conclusion from these photos, I would say people were a tad less enthused than those posing with a fully stuffed Felix, but four is really hardly a fair sampling and I own so many of the others. Still, one of the joys of collecting is the ability to compare photos side-by-side. The child in today’s photo does look a bit tentative however, the backdrop painting of a fantasy park is a jollier one than in the other photos. Like virtually all of these photos, this one survives in good condition because it was never mailed, there are no notations on the back either however.

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So my virtual museum of images continues. I hope you continue to enjoy this rather specific photo journey with Pictorama.