Sale 2544 Lot 43
JACK PASHKOVSKY (1911-2001)
A pair of photographs depicting tennis star Bill Tilden.
Silver prints, the images measuring 229x178 mm.; 9x7 inches, the sheets slightly larger, each with Pashkovsky's credit stamp on verso. Circa 1935.

[500/750]

 Bill Tilden was the first American to win the Wimbledon men's singles title in 1920, and for the following 6 years, he won every major tournament he entered. In the 1940s, Tilden's life was riddled with scandal. An article by Ron Borges describes him thus: "Of all his remarkable feats none can surpass this: In 1950, during an era of closed minds, the Red scare and sexual conservatism, Big Bill Tilden was overwhelmingly voted the greatest tennis player of the first half of the 20th century in an Associated Press poll only six weeks after being released from prison for the second time on a conviction of having fondled and made unwanted advances to a teenage boy." Though he remains in the Tennis Hall of Fame, he was largely erased from Tennis history and forgotten, shunned by both tennis and Hollywood circles.