Valentin Wolfenstein

Valentin Wolfenstein (19 April 1845 – 3 February 1909) was a Swedish-American photographer who worked both in Stockholm and Los Angeles, California. He was one of the first photographers to use flash-lamps for photography.

He owned the first successful photography studio in Los Angeles where he photographed many famous Californians in the 1870s in 1880s.^[1]

After returning to Sweden, Wolfenstein owned Atelier Jaeger, the official court photographer's studio in Stockholm, from 1890 to 1905. He was a pioneer in his field and possibly the first in Sweden to make interior pictures in theaters using flash-lamp photography.^[2] He took pictures of theater scenes and actors' dressing rooms.^[2] A particular skill he developed was taking "look-alike pictures", a double exposure technique that combined images of the same person in two different poses, for example, sitting and standing.^[2]

Wolfenstein was born August Valentin Wolfenstein on 19 April 1845 in Falun. His parents were Viktor Adolf Wolfenstein (1817–1881) and Anna Elisabeth Brostrom (1807–1851).^[3] He emigrated to the United States during the American Civil War and enlisted^{[clarification needed]} in New York City on 31 January 1865.^[4] After the war he worked as a photographer in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he had a photography studio in 1867.^[5]

He established a studio in Los Angeles in 1871 on the second floor of New Temple Block in Downtown Los Angeles.^[6] Here he bought the services of Henri Penelon, a French painter, for color tinting portraits.^[7] He is also listed as still being at Temple Block in 1875 in the Los Angeles city directory.^[8]

Wolfenstein married Philopena Brown (1863–1884) on 26 February 1884 while he was in New Bedford. They had a daughter the same year, named Florentina. Philopena died later that year. He then married Clara Brown (1868–1892). They had two sons, Robert (1889–1977) and Walter (1890 – d. before 1909).^[3] When he failed at some Los Angeles side businesses in the 1880s, he sought new surroundings and went to Guatemala and Mexico where he ran photographic studios.^[7]

He returned to Sweden in the 1890s, sometime after Clara died, and settled in Stockholm, where he became an employee of the royal photographer Johannes Jaeger at his studio, Atelier Jaeger.^[9][10] In the 1890s, Wolfenstein established a photographic studio at Drottninggatan 33 in Stockholm. When Jaeger moved back to Germany, his home country, Wolfenstein bought both of his studios for 60,000 kronor.^[9][11] Wolfenstein continued to call the studio of 30 employees by its original name "Atelier Jaeger", because of its already established reputation as the official court photographer.^[10][12]

Wolfenstein sold Atelier Jaeger in 1905 and returned to the United States.^[13] Albin Roosval and Herman Sylwander, who took over his studios, kept the same original name for the studio.^[14]

Wolfenstein died in Los Angeles on 3 February 1909 at the age of 63.^[15] He is buried at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Central Los Angeles.^[16]

• 
  Wolfenstein's "look-alike"
  of his boss John Jaeger
  sitting and standing
• 
  1894 flash photography of scene in Swedish Theatre taken by Wolfenstein
• 
  Wolfenstein took this photo of outlaw Tiburcio Vasquez behind the Los Angeles jail on May 18, 1874.

• 
  "Man holding rifle", 1868 Navajo chief Barboncito
• 
  Navajo chief Manuelito with his wife and son, 1868
• 
  Daughter-in-law of chief Barboncito, "Mica se qui", 1868
• 
  Manuelito, Barboncito, and Navajo boy and man, 1868

• Andrews, Ralph Warren (1964). Picture Gallery Pioneers, 1850 to 1875. Superior Publishing Company.
• Söderberg, Rolf; Rittsel, Pär (1983). Den svenska fotografins historia 1840–1940 The Swedish history of photography. Bonnier fakta. ISBN 978-91-34-50314-4.
• Palmquist, Peter E. (2000). Pioneer Photographers of the Far West: A Biographical Dictionary, 1840–1865. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-3883-5.

• Valentin Wolfenstein at Find a Grave

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