Murray Korman

Moritz Korman was born on March 16, 1902, in Russian Empire (now Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine). After emigrating to the United States, he changed his name to Murray Korman. In 1907, when his mother died, his father emigrated to New York City, settling on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Korman and four older siblings joined him a few years later. He attended P.S. 13 and later transferred to P.S. 160 (now home to Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center). Already spending most of his class time sketching and doing caricatures, Korman left school at the age of fourteen before receiving a diploma and took a job in a Kewpie doll factory painting faces, at which he became so successful that he wound up doing all the face painting on a contract basis in a shop of his own. In 1917, Korman enrolled in night classes at the Cooper Union School of Art, continuing through 1924 while also maintaining his Kewpie-painting business. He closed his Kewpie business in 1924 and began a two-year stint doing sketches for newspapers and Broadway shows. He took up photography in 1926 after realizing that he could create images more rapidly and effectively with the camera than with the pen. == Professional background ==

, age 20 He was successful almost immediately. The New Yorker magazine, in a 1942 profile of Korman titled "The One Big Name," paraphrased newspaper feature writer John Ferris describing the photographer's impact on Broadway as "What Holbein was to the court of Henry VIII, Murray Korman is to Broadway." Korman's images were sometimes controversial; in photographing showgirls, he specialized in "leg art and nudes because people looked at them and because he found women vain enough to desire that kind of picture." In 1934, the Hollywood Cabaret Restaurant mounted a lobby exhibit of Korman's drawings and photographs of Hollywood showgirls and subsequently published a small souvenir book responding to "many requests from authors, publishers and private individuals for some of these artistic studies." In an essay in the book entitled "A Toast to an Artist," screenwriter Paul Yawitz called Korman "one of America's outstanding modern artists", and noted that "his originality and versatility are quickly perceived in the many ways by which he interprets the beauty he finds in his subjects. Through his black and white, crayon, pastel, and camera studies, he displays a skill that places his work foremost in its field." He said he had coined a new word: "vitabeaut", to describe a woman like Ginger Rogers who was "vibrant, beautiful, athletic, with a beaming personality, bright eyes, [and] brilliant hair." Korman also took publicity photos of swimmers for Billy Rose's Aquacade which was a hit at the fair. Korman photographed and married actress Pat Farrell. They divorced in 1952. Korman died penniless on August 9, 1961. ==Portrait subjects==

File:Publicity photo by Murray Korman, ca. 1930.jpg|Publicity photo by Murray Korman, ca. 1930 File:Publicity photo by Murray Korman, ca. 1940.jpg|Publicity photo by Murray Korman, ca. 1940 File:Publicity photo by Murray Korman, date unknown.jpg|Publicity photo by Murray Korman, date unknown File:Publicity photo by Murray Korman, ca. 1945.jpg|Publicity photo by Murray Korman, ca. 1945 ==References==