Lot 249: WELLS, HERBERT GEORGE (1866-1946, novelist, science fiction writer and social commentator)

PORTRAIT BY WALTER STONEMAN (1876-1958), vintage photograph, silver print, half-length, showing Wells in a thick shirt, handkerchief in the pocket just above his arms, turning towards the camera, photographer's stamp on verso, framed and glazed, size of image 9 x 7½ inches (23 x 19 cm), overall size 15 x 13 inches (38 x 33 cm), [1940s]

Walter Stoneman began as a photographer in the 1890s and was still working in his studio in Baker Street at the time of his death. He was the chief photographer (and ultimately chairman) of J. Russell & Sons, photographers to the National Portrait Gallery's National Photographic Record, founded in 1926. In that capacity he photographed some 7,000 distinguished sitters. He called himself 'the Man's Photographer' on the now controversial grounds that 'Women do not make beautiful photographs. Men have more character in their faces.'