The La Jolla Historical Society opened “Leopold Hugo: La Jolla as Muse in Pictorialist Photography” on Sept. 1 \u2014 an exhibit featuring a photographic timeline and biography of La Jolla\u2019s first professional photographer, according to the society\u2019s historian Carol Olten. Despite some mystery surrounding facts of his life, like the exact date and location of his birth, one thing is certain \u2014 Leopold Hugo was instrumental in capturing the history and natural beauty of La Jolla in his photography of the coastline in the early 20th century. The Prussian-born artist first came to La Jolla in 1907 when he established a dry goods store in the heart of present-day La Jolla Village. Much of Hugo\u2019s early work focused on photographic postcards taken at surrounding beaches \u2014 many originals of which are currently on display at the Historical Society\u2019s exhibit. He later elevated his technique from mere snapshot photography to a level of photographic art, Olten said. “He was one of the California pictorialists of the early 1900s who photographed landscapes, seascapes and nature, but then altered it in their techniques and their developing process,” she said. The height of Hugo\u2019s progression in this style of photography is illustrated at the exhibit through a group of 15 photographs that were donated by Ray Clarke Rose, a New York author and writer who compiled “La Jolla California, the Little Town of Heart\u2019s Desire,” a promotional pamphlet featuring photographs with striking scenes of waves crashing against a rocky shoreline, dramatic scenes of light piercing through foreboding clouds and Cathedral Rock near present-day Casa de Manana which crashed into the sea in 1906. The exhibit also showcases photographs from a period of time when Hugo sporadically disappeared to locations in northern California where he continued his work before eventually returning to La Jolla in 1929. Researcher Sandy Spalding at the La Jolla Historical Society scoured newspaper collections, tracked down relatives and acquired copies of photographs in order to uncover many of the mysteries surrounding Hugo\u2019s life. Several unknowns, however, remain. The final plaque at the exhibit reads: “As an individual, Hugo remains somewhat of an enigma. He died after having a heart attack on a driving trip with his wife to visit relatives in Belton, Texas in 1933. He could have been 67 \u2014 or 62 or 63? He could have been German \u2014 or Austrian? But what really matters, after all, is his eye for the world and how he wished others to see it.” “Leopold Hugo: La Jolla as a Muse in Pictorialist Photography” will be on display until Nov. 20 at Wisteria Cottage, located at 780 Prospect St. Hours of operation are Thursdays through Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. and admission is free. For more information, visit www.lajollahistory.org or call (858) 459-5335.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The La Jolla Historical Society opened “Leopold Hugo: La Jolla as Muse in Pictorialist Photography” on Sept. 1 \u2014 an exhibit featuring a photographic timeline and biography of La Jolla\u2019s first professional photographer, according to the society\u2019s historian Carol Olten. Despite some mystery surrounding facts of his life, like the exact date and location of […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":269059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"La Jolla, then and now: The works of La Jolla\u2019s first photographer uncovered and on display at Wisteria Cottage","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}