213 pp. Embossed titles and decorations. A collection of biographical sketches of influential women, including: Eleanor Roosevelt; Margaret Sanger; Helena Rubinstein; Florence Guggenheim; Dorothy Canfield; Joan Crawford; Tallulah Bankhead; Emily Post; Ida Tarbell; Carrie Chapman Catt; etc.; etc. Includes photographic portraits by G. Maillard Kesslere, a student of impressionist painter William Merritt Chase. Kesslere was known as a portrait artist and photographer. "Kesslere was a graduate of Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, and one of the last students of William Merritt Chase. After graduation, he opened a portrait studio in Syracuse, practicing photography as well as painting, including the collaboration on several mural projects. Asked to become an art editor for the periodical The Debutante, he moved to New York in 1921, closing the Syracuse studio in 1922. By the time The Debutante folded, his reputation as a talented photographer had been established, winning him a large clientele in the city, where 'he became an important figure in consolidating the cultural connections between the homosexual arts community and high society in the period between the wars.' In 1923, Kesslere created a series of paintings and pastels, depicting draped nude girls, running in the open air. These works led to his theatrical photography, and he became one of the best bust format photographers of the late 1920s and 1930s. For his portraiture he was awarded recognition by the British Royal Academy of Photography, and on March 26, 1935, Kesslere exhibited 500 of his photographs, paintings, drawings, and etchings in the Patricia Lounge of Loew's Ziegfeld Theater." (askart)
