Murray Korman Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1902 - d. 1961

Murray Korman (March 16, 1902 – August 10, 1961) was an American publicity photographer. He made his reputation in New York City as a "Hollywood style high key high gloss glamour"photographer whose clients ranged from showgirls to famous entertainers to members of "cafe society". Unlike other major theatrical portraitists of the time, he created his images in the camera, rather than manipulating them later at the printing stage. During the height of his fame, he was considered "the expert on beauty in his time".

Moritz Korman was born on March 16, 1902 in Russia. After emigrating to the United States, he changed his name to Murray Korman.[3] In 1907, when his mother died, his father emigrated to New York City, settling in the Lower East Side neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan. Korman and four older siblings joined him a few years later. He attended P.S. 13 and later transferred to P.S. 160 (now home to Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center[4]).[3] Already spending most of his class time sketching and doing caricatures, Korman left school at the age of fourteen before receiving a diploma and took a job in a Kewpie doll factory painting faces, at which he became so successful that he wound up doing all the face painting on a contract basis in a shop of his own.[3]

In 1917, Korman enrolled in night classes at the Cooper Union School of Art, continuing through 1924 while also maintaining his Kewpie-painting business.[3] He closed his Kewpie business in 1924 and began a two-year stint doing sketches for newspapers and Broadway shows.[3] He took up photography in 1926 after realizing that he could create images more rapidly and effectively with the camera than with the pen