Kodak Advertising Department All-bum
Behind the scenes at the Eastman Kodak Company, the ad men who so skillfully marketed cameras and film seem to have also enjoyed a laugh. Gathered in this workplace album from 1940, the heads of the male advertising staff appear montaged onto the bodies of pinup girls and femmes fatale. One “Legs Casey” smolders in a satin nightie, and a man named Pete appears to sport bloomers emblazoned with a box of Kodak film. In on the joke, the album-maker affixes his own face—“me”—to a kitschy cowgirl bedecked in fringe.
Kodak owed its early success as much to advertising as to technological innovation. The so-called Kodak Girls—an imagined collective of chic, camera-wielding women in their teens and twenties—became the fresh faces of the corporate brand, at once embodying the progressive potential of photography and locating its commercial applications squarely within a traditional domestic zone. Insofar as the Kodak Girl snapped vacation pictures, friend gatherings, and first birthdays, she marketed a profitable model of documentary photography: fixing memories of family life. Coding her exaggerated femininity as an analogue for technical ineptitude, advertisers conveyed the simplicity of these new machines, so intuitive that even women could use them.
Well versed in the iconography of the Kodak Girl, the maker of this album scraps her for parts. Reimagining his colleagues in her image, he probes playfully at notions of professionalism in their field, even as the montages themselves reveal no shortage of technical prowess. In one telling composition, he melds the head of a mustachioed coworker onto the lithe frame of a Kodak Girl in a printed playsuit. Beside her hovers the query from a popular ad campaign: “Have you plenty of Kodak Verichrome film?”, to which the album-maker has scrawled a simpering affirmative response. His hybrid figure holds a camera in one hand and brandishes boxes of film in the other. Who, one might wonder, is the amateur now?
Kodak owed its early success as much to advertising as to technological innovation. The so-called Kodak Girls—an imagined collective of chic, camera-wielding women in their teens and twenties—became the fresh faces of the corporate brand, at once embodying the progressive potential of photography and locating its commercial applications squarely within a traditional domestic zone. Insofar as the Kodak Girl snapped vacation pictures, friend gatherings, and first birthdays, she marketed a profitable model of documentary photography: fixing memories of family life. Coding her exaggerated femininity as an analogue for technical ineptitude, advertisers conveyed the simplicity of these new machines, so intuitive that even women could use them.
Well versed in the iconography of the Kodak Girl, the maker of this album scraps her for parts. Reimagining his colleagues in her image, he probes playfully at notions of professionalism in their field, even as the montages themselves reveal no shortage of technical prowess. In one telling composition, he melds the head of a mustachioed coworker onto the lithe frame of a Kodak Girl in a printed playsuit. Beside her hovers the query from a popular ad campaign: “Have you plenty of Kodak Verichrome film?”, to which the album-maker has scrawled a simpering affirmative response. His hybrid figure holds a camera in one hand and brandishes boxes of film in the other. Who, one might wonder, is the amateur now?
Artwork Details
- Title: Kodak Advertising Department All-bum
- Artist: Unknown (American)
- Date: October 3, 1940
- Medium: Gelatin silver prints
- Dimensions: Images: 4 1/2 × 3 1/2 in. (11.4 × 8.9 cm) to 11 1/4 × 8 1/4 in. (28.6 × 21 cm), each
Overall: 13 × 11 × 1/2 in. (33 × 28 × 1.3 cm) - Classifications: Photographs, Albums
- Credit Line: Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2022
- Object Number: 2022.285
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
More Artwork
Research Resources
The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.