Edgar de Evia
Edgar Domingo Evia y Joutard, known professionally as Edgar de Evia (July 30, 1910 – February 10, 2003), was an Mexican-born American photographer and author.
In a career that spanned the 1940s through the 1990s, his photography appeared in magazines and newspapers such as Town & Country, House & Garden, Look and The New York Times and advertising campaigns for General Motors, Borden Ice Cream, Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation, Jell-O, Revlon, among other corporations.
Birth and Family
De Evia was born in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. His mother was Pauline Joutard (1890-1957), a French-born pianist who performed under the stage name Miirrha Alhambra.[1] His father was Domingo Fernando Evia y Barbachano (1883-1977), a wealthy landowner who was a member of two families that have been prominent in the politics and culture of Yucatán since the mid 19th century, one of which, the Barbachanos, has been described as "one of the most powerful of Yucatán’s oligarchy."
His great-grandfather Don Miguel Barbachano y Tarrazo (1806-1859) was a five-time governor of Yucatán and the patriarch of a clan that was instrumental in developing the Mexican resorts of Cozumel and Playas de Rosarito in Baja California Norte and in popularizing the ruins of Chichen Itza as a tourist attraction. Among his cousins was Manuel Barbachano Ponce, the Mexican film producer and director.
On 30 June 1912, at the age of two, Evia arrived with his family in New York City aboard the liner "Progreso.". He graduated from The Dalton School in 1931.
Based on immigration and other official records, it appears that Evia altered his surname to de Evia sometime after 1942, at which time he was using the professional name Edgar D. Evia.
Careers
Homeopathy research
After briefly working for the Associated Press[citation needed], he became the research assistant to Dr. Guy Beckley Stearns, a homeopathic physician with whom he wrote and published articles and one book about homeopathy.
For Laurie's Domestic Medicine, a medical guide published in 1942, Stearns and Edgar D. Evia contributed an essay called "The New Synthesis", which was expanded that same year into a book entitled "The Physical Basis of Homeopathy and the New Synthesis". In the New England Journal of Homeopathy (Spring/Summer 2001, Vol. 10, No. 1), Richard Moskowitz, MD, called the Stearns-Evia article "a cutting-edge essay into homeopathic research that prophesied and actually began the development of kinesiology, made original contributions to radionics, and dared to sketch out a philosophy of these still esoteric frontiers of homeopathy at a time when such matters were a lot further beyond the pale of respectable science even than they are today."
The book The New Synthesis has been described as "a fascinating synthesis of various ideas about potency, the biology of reaction in organisms and techniques for measuring nervous system responses to a remedy. The book discusses pulse testing and pupilary reaction as a method of testing sensitivity to homeopathic substances."
Stearns and Evia also contributed, from March until June 1942, a column entitled "The New Synthesis" to the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy. The pair also published, in the February 1942 issue of the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy, an article entitled "The Physical Basis of Homeopathy." To assist de Evia in his research responsibilities, Stearns gave him his first camera, a Rolleiflex.
Photography
Another of de Evia's early mentors was the magazine editor Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, who gave him his first assignment for Town & Country magazine.
Frequently producing images utilizing soft focus and diffusion, de Evia was dubbed a "master of still life" in the 1957 publication Popular Photography Color Annual. In a review of the book, The New York Times stated that "Black and white [photography] is frequently interspersed through the book and serves as a reminder that black and white still has a useful place, even in a world of color, often more convincingly as well. This is pointed up rather persuasively in the portfolio on Edgar de Evia as a 'master of still life' and in the one devoted to the work of Rene Groebil."
William A. Reedy, editor of APPLIED PHOTOGRAPHY, in a 1970 interview for the Eastman Kodak publication Studio Light/Commercial Camera, wrote that de Evia:
"has been a photographic illustrator in New York City for many years. His work has helped sell automobiles, food, drink, furniture and countless other products. To fashion accounts he has been known as a fashion photographer, while food people think of him as a specialist in still life. While, in fact, he is a photographer, period. He applies his considerable talent and experience to whatever the problem at hand."
Melvin Sokolsky, a fashion photographer who has created iconic images for Harpers Bazaar and Vogue, considered Edgar de Evia one of his earliest influences, saying, "I discovered that Edgar was paid $4,000 for a Jell-O ad, and the idea of escaping from my tenement dwelling became an incredible dream and inspiration."
A romantic photograph of a 1937 Rolls-Royce, which had belonged to Barbara Hutton, near which de Evia's then companion, Robert Denning, was posed, pushing a girl in a swing, won de Evia the General Motors' Body by Fisher account in the early 1950s.
In 1968 de Evia founded and served as creative director of a catalogue-photography company that produced photographs for a number of department-store catalogs, including those of Sakowitz in Houston and Gimbel's in New York.
Relationships
In the 1950s, de Evia's companion and business partner was Robert Denning, who worked in his studio and who would become a leading American interior designer and partner in the firm Denning & Fourcade.From 1966 until de Evia's death, his companion and business partner was David McJonathan-Swarm.
Death
Edgar de Evia, age 92, died at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City from pneumonia following a broken hip.[26] His ashes were interred in the columbarium of the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City.
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