2023-03 HCA Auctions
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/8/2023
This is a beautiful 5-1/2" x 11-1/2" silver print photo of a women clad in diaphanous black wrap, with lightly-tinted lips. The image was produced in 1914. However, in 1976 Glenn Boyer used an airbrushed version of Kaloma as the cover illustration for his book, "I Married Wyatt Earp", published by the University of Arizona Press. As a result, the western collecting world began to show serious interest in this image. During the 1990's, several national auction houses sold this image for $3000-$4000 based on the possible "Josie Earp" attribution. Whether this portrait depicts, or doesn't depict, Josie Earp has become a point of controversy over the years. After the original photo was taken in 1914, the 'Kaloma' model has gone through a myriad of incarnations-as a sheet music cover image for 'Kaloma, Valse Hesitante (Hesitation Waltz),' as a WWI and postwar pinup, and perhaps most famously as the main image for a Vanilla Fudge and The Charles Lloyd Quartet concert poster made by Alton Kelley. Glenn Boyer's decision to use an airbrushed version as the cover illustration for the 1976 book I Married Wyatt Earp quickly aligned the image of 'Kaloma' with that of Josie Earp.
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