Latest inspiration

I love this 1956 album cover. I would buy it if I could justify spending $75 for it. I may have to emulate this style on some collages, if I can just find some photos of people with space helmets.

I noticed the photo was by Wendy Hilty and I thought wow! a female commercial photographer from the 1950s. Alas, no, "Wendy" was a man. I couldn't find much about him, so I dug a bit deeper and present herewith a brief if incomplete biography.

Oscar Wendellin Hilty was born 13 May 1913 in Zurich, Switzerland of German parents, at least according to the information from several ships' passenger lists. According to his 1978 obituary he was born in Liechtenstein and trained as an architect in Zurich. Another article reported he was an instructor at the Engelberg Ski School in Switzerland. He could speak German, French and Spanish, and I'm guessing he became proficient in English as well. He helped found the first ski school in Chile in the late 1930s and also supervised ski instruction at the Plymouth Swiss Ski School in Plymouth, New Hampshire about the same time.

At some point Wendy picked up a camera and during the 1950s his photos graced a number of record albums for the RCA Living Stereo series. He also shot photos for ads and magazine covers, and seems to have been based in Manhattan during this time.

Saddle photo - 1956 Argosy magazine

1959 Canadian Club ad from Life Magazine

Hilty got an "atta boy" in a 1957 Billboard for his portrait of Diahann Carroll. The magazine noted the "Lovely cover will surely attract attention and sales."

1957 - Diahann Carroll on RCA

 More examples of Hilty's work for RCA.

1951 - Brigadoon on RCA

1957 - Hawaiian Guitar on RCA

1958 Hi-Fi Christmas Party on RCA Camden

1959 The Ames Brothers on RCA

 And finally, the most recent example of Hilty's work I could find, a 1962 print ad for Mercedes Benz.

1962 ad for Mercedes Benz

In 1958 Hilty settled on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands where he became a successful real estate developer. His most notable developments had to do with the King's Alley Hotel and shopping arcade and the Caravelle Hotel and arcade in downtown Christiansted, and the Mount Royale residential area, where he and his wife built a stylish home on the ruins of an old rum factory. Hilty died  18 June 1978 in Christiansted after a long illness.

Wallpaper Bits

The last house I lived in was a circa 1890 Texas farmhouse. It was owned for more than 50 years by a family whose breadwinner was an old-time wallpaper hanger. The kitchen was in desperate need of remodeling when I purchased the place and during demolition of the plaster walls we found many layers of different kinds of wallpaper. Over at Retro Renovation today they're featuring some fabulous wallpaper from 1928, and while my examples aren't exactly fabulous, they're from about the same era, so I thought I'd throw them into the mix. The wallpaper was variously underlaid with muslin, newspapers from Dallas, and burlap sacks from an Oklahoma flour mill. Little could be salvaged because of water damage and almost everything was literally falling apart. The silverfish were having a feast! I photographed and scanned what I could before it all went to the landfill.

Two inseperable wallpapers

Probably the most colorful piece in the bunch. Interesting geometric forms scattered about.

I really liked the green dots on the grid. It's stuck to two layers of muslin.

Bits of two comic strips from The Dallas Journal, whose name was changed in 1938. Some of the newspapers were dated 1928, but Broncho Bill ran from 1932-1950 and Sky Roads from 1929-1942, so this particular part of the wall was probably laid between 1932 and 1938.