Edmund Teske Photograph Collection

Biographical Note

Edmund Teske was born in Chicago on March 7, 1911. In 1931 Teske attended evening classes at Huttle Art Studio in Chicago to study painting and drawing. He began photographing Frank Lloyd Wright homes as a member of the Taliesin Fellowship in the late 1930s. Beginning in the mid 1940s Teske was heavily influenced by the teachings of Hindu Swami Prabhavananda, learning about Hindu mythology and symbolism.

During the mid 1940s he relocated to Los Angeles where he worked with Paramount Pictures in the photographic still department. He began to exhibit his work and he made heavy use of the solarization technique to reverse highlight and shadow. He developed his own technique called duotone solarization which combines chemical toning and solarization. In 1969 he received a Certificate of Recognition from the Photographic Society of America.

Edmund Teske died in 1996.

Scope and Content

These 24 photographs were taken in 1937 and are from a play titled Triple-A Plowed Under. The play was performed as part of the Federal Theater Project (FTP), which was part of the Works Project Administration (WPA). In its first year the FTP employed 11,000 people in 22 states. During its four-year history (1935-1939) the FTP mounted more than 8,000 performances in 30 states. Triple-A Plowed Under was performed at the Great Northern Theater at 26 W. Jackson Boulevard in Chicago in 1936 and it is unknown if this is where these photographs were taken. Triple-A Plowed Under is a pantomimic and factual documentation of the history leading to the deep depression of the mid 1930s. Teske's photography captures in every way the stark social context of the production, and indeed, of FTP productions generally.

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