Louise Brooks
Photographed by M.I. Boris
Paramount Studios Publicity Photograph
1925 · New York City, New York

The unique graphic quality of Louise's face lent itself beautifully to the photography of M.I. Boris. Boris's technique was unusual because he etched and drew into the negatives themselves; at this time, bulky glass plates were the only form of photographic negative. Photographs like this one had a distinctive painterly quality that set them apart from the work of any other portrait photographer. Boris's photos of Brooks only slightly prefigured her transformation into real graphic characters: newspaper comic heroine Dixie Dugan, and later in the 1960s, Valentina.