Ruben Sobol, Photographer of the Roaring Twenties

"The Performing Arts Department seldom receives a donation of prints from the first half the 20 th century,” says Manon Dardenne, the national library of France (BnF) curator responsible for the library’s iconographic and photographic collections. “These prints by Ruben Sobol (1889-1944) are outstanding." They span a wide variety of genres, from classic anonymous studio portraits, including some touched up by pencil, to pictures of athletes, politicians, maharajahs, princesses, countesses, theatre managers and celebrities – notably Maurice Chevalier, Mistinguette, Josephine Baker, the Dolly Sisters and Lucienne Boyer – as well as shots of society dinners and holiday resorts. "The prints are rather academic from a formal viewpoint, but some images feature original subjects, such as a series of lesbian couples or…