Eugene Kornman

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Eugene Kornman, also known as Gene Korman, was a photographer whose work ranged from movie stills (Scarface, Doctor Bull, Yellow Sky) to glamour shots of Hollywood stars such as Shirley Temple, Don Ameche, and Cesar Romaro. Korman's daughters (Mary and Mildred) were child actors in the famous Our Gang and Little Rascals silent films. His younger daughter Mildred changed her name, too, just like Marilyn had—as "Ricki Van Dusen," she became of one of the top fashion models of the '50s, modeling for the likes of Irving Penn, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, John Rawlings, and Horst P. Horst (that's her on the Vogue cover).


Eugene Kornman is most well-known for one of his 1953 stills for the movie Niagara. This still featured a young Marilyn Monroe and was used as the basis for Andy Warhol's series of "Marilyn's" that began in 1962 following her suicide. Warhol stated, "In August 62 I started doing silkscreens. I wanted something stronger that gave more of an assembly line effect. With silkscreening you pick a photograph, blow it up, transfer it in glue onto silk, and then roll ink across it so the ink goes through the silk but not through the glue. That way you get the same image, slightly different each time. It was all so simple quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it. When Marilyn Monroe happened to die that month, I got the idea to make screens of her beautiful face the first Marilyns."


A comparison of Korman's Niagara still, Warhol's "Marilyn," and Shepard Fairey's Marilyn Warhol.

Kornman's still from Niagara
An Andy Warhol "Marilyn"



More of Kornman's work can be seen here. Kornman at IMBD.


References: The Online Photographer, Web Exhibits

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