Murray Korman Biography
Murray Korman was born in 1900 in Podolak, Russia. He and his parents immigrated to New York City in 1912. After attending Cooper Union to study graphic design, he worked as a newspaper illustrator and painter of Kewpie dolls in the early 1920s. He earned money by drawing nightclub regulars to their tables. Korman applied for naturalization in May 1928. At the time he was a cartoonist for the Spanish-language newspaper La Prensa and produced a short-lived daily "Poor Paddy" comic strip that appeared in some New England newspapers. In late 1929, he opened a photography studio on the fifth floor of the Mayfair Theater Building on 47th Street and Seventh Avenue in New York City, focusing on theatrical work. In 1940 he opened a second studio on Madison Avenue for his business with coffee companies. He employed twelve people, including his brother, and became the first artist owner to sign a wage agreement with the Photo Employees Union in 1943. He distinguished himself from other prominent Depression-era theatrical portraitists by not attempting to graphically manipulate the Images. Herbert Mitchell, MI Boris, Irving Chidnoff and Alfred Cheney Johnston all incorporated artistic effects into the backgrounds. In 1947, Murray Korman self-published a handy five-part booklet series titled The Art of Glamor Photography. Sold as a "course," it cost $10 and featured his analysis of poses, lighting, and problems with human parts, such as legs and thighs. It codified the kind of celebration of images of the flesh that audiences associated with Korman. Yet he was a more creative figure than the "course" would suggest. He liked Bert Longworth's photographic game of angles. He also had artistic ambitions, perhaps most memorably manifested in his collaboration with Salvador Dali on the film and installation "Dream of Venus" at the New York World's Fair. Korman's frames of that installation remain the most evocative trace of that temporary provocation. Since Korman's artistic skill lay in posing and lighting, he limited himself to touching up imperfections. He preferred small hot spots that were shot from the side. "He turned to leg art and nudes because people looked at them and because he found women vain enough to want those kinds of photos. These shots made him the best-known showgirl photographer in the Times Square area." He advertised to open a branch of his studio in Boston in 1948, but the business was unsuccessful. In the 1950s, he formed a partnership with photographer Gil Ross and the joint studio operated at 32 West 58th Street in Manhattan.
