Shadowland: the “magazine of magazines”
One hundred years ago today … Shadowland was a vibrant, colorful, monthly arts journal.
A. M. Hopfmuller. Shadowland, July 1920, Cover, The Internet Archive.
Throughout its run, Shadowland’s dreamy covers were painted by A.M. Hopfmuller, a Brooklynite about whom little seems to be known today.
A. M. Hopfmuller. Shadowland, June 1920, Cover, The Internet Archive.
More of Hopfmuller’s Shadowland covers are featured at the Precode Cinema Blog.
Founded in 1919, the “magazine of magazines” would run until 1923. Shadowland was edited by Frederick James Smith–who would score an important interview with F. Scott Fitzgerald (who has appeared several times on this site) for the January 1921 issue.
As the July 1920 title page shows, Shadowland published essays and reviews addressing the performing arts and literature from its office at 177 Duffield Street in downtown Brooklyn.
Shadowland July 1920, p. 5.The Internet Archive.
The magazine’s true legacy seems to be in its illustrations: reproductions of color paintings and original photography.
Vaudevillian Marguerite Gill. “Painted from Photograph by Alfred Cheney Johnston.” Shadowland, July 1920, p. 8. The Internet Archive.
The Dolly Sisters. “An exclusive camera study taken for Shadowland by Maurice Goldberg. Shadowland July 1920, p.11. The Internet Archive.
The Dolly Sisters, above, were stage and cinema performers and identical twins, born in Hungary as Yansci and Roszika Deutsch. Read more about them at Streetswing.com. Photographer Maurice Goldberg was a Russian-born Bronx artist who made a career in theater portraiture.
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, JULY 7, 2020.
TAGS: magazines, print culture, the arts, Brooklyn, theater