Photo Album Depicting Character Actor and Fowler Brothers Window Displays

Los Angeles, California, 1923. Very good. 7¼" x 11¼". String tied cloth over flexible card. 62 pages with 94 black and white photographs adhesive mounted. Most photos measure between 2¾" x 4½" to 5½" x 3¼" with six 5" x 7" or larger; most are captioned. Album very good plus with minor imperfections, photos near fine or better.

This album is filled with stunning images of two disparate genres of performance art: live theater and window displays—and the window displays are devoted exclusively to the Fowler Brothers book store, then located at 747 South Broadway in Los Angeles. While not denoted as such, the colleague who sold the album to us says it was acquired with a scrapbook that was compiled by the actor shown here: a Richard H. Sloan who appeared in many Los Angeles plays from 1920-1926 and was stage manager of the Literary Theatre of Los Angeles. We're told that the scrapbook showed that Sloan also created dioramas as well as designed and built sets for some performances.

The first 17 leaves have a total of 51 photos artfully arranged rectos only, showing Sloan dressed in character for several different roles and posing outside. The shows included Wandering Jew, Busted Blossoms, The Melon Thief, Her Husband's Wife, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Spirit of 1820.

The rest of the album is devoted to Fowler Brothers displays. We assume Sloan documented them because he either created them or played a signficant role in their creation. While many are captivating at first glance, the images further spring to life with a loupe as dozens of books are revealed, with many in their pristine original jackets. Approximately half of the display photos show small "props" or dioramas including one for Daisy Ashford: Her Book, another for Humpty Dumpty, a Halloween display, a nativity scene and more.

The other half show large street-facing window displays. These include Easter 1921, which shows various religious works and novels in the book window, as well as die-cut greeting cards, paintings and other items in the store's stationery window. Inspection of an April 1921 "architectural book window" reveals around 20 different titles, with multiple copies of California Gardens. Several shots show the displays for Frederick O'Brien's Mystic Isles of the South Seas, which include a miniature thatched hut and a ukulele. A couple featured the B.P.O.E.'s "Elk Week," including a window entitled "Books Descriptive of the West," which show a few dozen items including Los Angeles photo books, The Mariposa Legend, and California: Romantic and Beautiful. One stunning image is devoted to a display for E. Phillips Oppenheim's The Great Prince of Shan showing many copies of the book surrounded by Asian motifs including a Buddhist shrine. Another shot, unfortunately a bit blurred, shows a Valentine's Day window. The largest photo in the album measures 7" x 9½" and is a closeup of a January 1923 display with numerous versions of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as well as dozens of copies of the soon-to-be-released Zane Grey novel, Wanderer of the Wasteland

A wonderful album of hypnotic costumed character poses combined with 1920s Los Angeles book store windows.