Arnold Genthe

Greta Garbo portrait, 1926.

Arnold Genthe was born in Berlin in 1869. In 1894, he earned a PhD in Philology at the University of Jena. In 1895, he came to San Francisco and became a self-taught photographer. He took many photos of Chinatown that are some of the only surviving ones that were taken before the 1906 earthquake. His most famous photographs are of the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake. In 1911, he moved to New York City and opened a portrait studio. He had many famous clients including Rockefeller, Woodrow Wilson and Greta Garbo. His portraits of her sent her career into orbit. He died in 1942 in NYC of a heart attack.

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