242 / 314
333
●
(MET. LIFE INSURANCE CO.—PORTRAITS)
An impressive amateur photographer’s documentary portrait series, with more than 450
photographs.
A seemingly comprehensive document, including elegant, natural portraits of the photographer’s
colleagues at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Manhattan, as well as friends from his
home in New Jersey, each carefully recorded and captioned, including the notation “by Chester.”
With portraits taken in front of the building, on the roof, and in Madison Square Park, as well as
more suburban New Jersey scenes showing church gatherings and friends at play. The shots are
detailed and reveal the photographer’s intimate, kind rapport with his subjects, as well as his
apparently obsessive documentary approach. Silver prints, the images measuring 4
1
/
4
x2
1
/
2
inches
(10.8x6.4 cm.), the sheets slightly larger, each with the photographer’s typed caption (including the
sitter’s name, other identifying features, such as the location, their age, their position within the
company, or other affiliation in the photographer’s life), and most with the sitter’s name again, in
ink (perhaps their signatures), a photo service stamp, or a date stamp, on verso. 1935-39
[1,000/1,500]