Picture a huge, sculptured-hedge labyrinth. The problems with this maze are that being inside it does not make it easier to solve than viewing it from high above, it must be explored in near darkness and any direction markers have been intentionally or accidentally removed. This is a reasonable metaphor describing my struggles in researching the life and work of the Danish photographer Mary Willumsen (1884-1961) 1. now, I will try to guide the reader through this frustrating puzzle; to make clear, where I've been so far, which parts of the path i'm sure of and where I see them leading. 2 yet, as the reader will find out, there is no guarantee that we will ever find the true solution.

   So, just to get off to a running start, let us begin with the only information that existed about Mary Willumsen in 1989 and head off full speed in the wrong direction. Bjørn Ochsner, the legendary founding father of the photographic collection of Copenhagen's Royal Library unknowingly combined two different women with similar names as one. The photographer Marie Villumsen (1872-1924) 3, who was quite obscure herself, proved exceedingly difficult to trace. The worst of all in researching Marie who lived in the Jutland town of Vestbirk, was that time after time, summer after summer, she kept ending up in Copenhagen where the postcards were made, and all evidence seemed to indicate that she was making these postcards secretly. Yet, no one in her family or among those I found who had known her had ever heard of her making erotic postcards, and with good reason. She never did! 4

   Let us first examine the work to understand why a deeper study of the artist was worth undertaking. Mary Willumsen's approach to the female nude was ahead of its time for male as well as female photographers of that genre. To see how much her work anticipated the coming styles of the 20's, 30's and 40's one need only compare to the previous generations' soft-focus nudes. These mythological-based designs avoided the depiction of flesh and form in a sharp realistic presentation like some of the photographers who came after Mary Willumsen 5. Likewise, her photographs though always posed, appear far more spontaneous than the previous century's photographic nude studies for artists. In a final comparison to the massive production of erotic postcards of the beginning of the 20th century, Mary's pictures have an intimacy and personal regard for the subject that make them unique for the genre.    We still know so little about her life and motives as an artist. Almost everything we do know comes from a police report when she was arrested in 1920 in connection with the production and sale of illegal postcards. In this report she denied having been previously accused or convicted of any crimes nor had she received state relief for the poor. The following is a translation of her statement regarding her production of these illegal postcards:

"In 1914, the accused, who is not trained as a photographer, got the permission of the inspector at the bathing establishment Helgoland, to photograph at Helgoland those customers who wished to be photographed, and that she has since that time occupied herself with this. She is, as a rule, once daily at the bathing establishment. In the beginning, it was for the customers' own use, that they, at their own request, let themselves be photographed and the accused received her payment from them. Later, among others, Scala Book Kiosk in the Scala building, wished to sell some bathing postcards and the owner at that time, Mr. Brix asked the accused to make him some bathing pictures. The accused therefore contacted some of her customers and got these women's permission, in view of the remaining plates to produce and sell the pictures.

In the first years [she] produced pictures partly in swimming attire and partly in underlinnen, but later the public's interest grew and thus Mr. Brix's requirement for more nude pictures and the accused therefore more recently switched to also making nude pictures, though here she as the accused sees it, didn't take the pictures "frontally", [but] from the side and the back. She declares that this picture taking never attempted to create pictures of [an] erotic or lewd character, but has by her own judgment tried to avoid this type of presentation. 6 The women who she used in her production and can be seen in the pictures she believes to be about 10 [different subjects]. They are women from various positions, theater women, maids and some of them more "loose living". As previously mentioned, the accused had sold the pictures to the Scala Book Kiosk and that she also sold to the questioned [suspect] in this report Johansen in Istedgade and finally that she sold to the kiosk at the Circus garden, whose owner is now Henry Jensen. Earlier the owner was Mr. Fischer. The accused guesses that, of the postcards in discussion, she dealt or rather produced ca. 1200 per month. Her price is 25 [øre] each. The accused wishes it noted that she herself had been in doubt as to what extent the concerned pictures were legally salable or not, but people she talked with about this, business people, had still declared that there was nothing to hinder the trade in these pictures and that she for several years had seen these pictures displayed in Scala Kiosk's windows, had also on this basis assumed the trade in the pictures was legal." On August 5, 1920 she was questioned by the police again 7.

  

In these series Mary had her women holding

a mirror to cover rather than reflect. The

woman in the sand is holding the same

mirror. However the woman standing with

the black mirror (below) is one Ebbesen called

his production.

  collection michael fornitz.

collection andrew daneman.

Emil Andersen Ebbesen
   Now the story begins to get really confusing. In 1990 the Danish Photo Historical Society published 16 Mary Willumsen postcards in Objektiv, the club's periodical. The editor received a call from the Århus Police Historical collection, to the effect that they were in possession of about 100 of the original glass negatives of the same or similar images.     When I heard this I was highly skeptical and arranged a trip to Århus to examine them. They were indeed the original negatives to many of the postcards that exist today, and to others never seen as positives. The problem is that these negatives are evidence from a case involving Emil Andersen Ebbesen and not Mary Willumsen. 8    Emil Andersen (1891-1933) was born in the Jutland city Århus. He was the son of the postcard photographer Hans Andersen, who changed his name in 1903 to Andersen Ebbesen (1848-1923). Hans Andersen Ebbesen was well-known locally for his postcards and landscape images, used often to illustrate numerous publications about the region. Emil Ebbesen followed in his father's footsteps, as an apprentice 9 and later, as a press photographer affiliated with the Århus paper The Democrat. Upon the death of his father, he continued the business both as a press photographer and as a publisher of postcards.

The Negatives
   In June 1919 members of a Copenhagen organization called Virgilia complained to the police about the sale of erotic postcards through a post order company called "Aga foto". Of the three men mentioned in the police report, two photographers lived in Copenhagen and Emil Andersen Ebbesen lived in Århus. The police in Copenhagen contacted their colleagues in Århus regarding Ebbesen's involvement in the "Aga" case. On the 1st of July, 1919 the local police chief in Århus sent officers or perhaps went himself, since the Ebbesens, both father and son, were known and respected locally, to discuss the matter with Emil. At that time, a number of negatives, between 130-200 were confiscated. Oddly however, many of the negatives had numbers written by Ebbesen in the high 300's and 400's, yet the police seemed satisfied that Ebbesen gave them everything relating to the case. He also claimed that he was the photographer of all the images and went on to describe where they were taken and how many copies of each he had produced. 10

 

Three scenarios
 There are three possible explanations of the amazing similarities in style and execution of the two bodies of work. The first and most preferable explanation would be if Mary Willumsen was actually the maker of all of the images. It is probable that she found the growing demand for her images overwhelming, and could not keep her production in line with the demand. She never advertised or listed herself as a photographer, and we can surmise, given the gray area where she worked on the edge of legality, that she ran her operation substantially alone. Consider for a moment that for her to supply just Scala Kiosk with their 1,200 cards a month, even for a short period of time, Mary would have to make about 60 cards a day. Though this doesn't seem like much in terms of modern production, one must remember that these cards had to be printed as contact prints, in daylight and processed relatively soon after. Mary would have spent most of her time making prints and would have had little time for taking new pictures. It is not hard to imagine she might have gone in desperation to one of her postcard distributors for help. Yet, if Mary wanted to find a printer she could trust with such a potentially dangerous project, who could handle such a job for her?

   We have proof that both Niels Christian Bøggild Brix (1885-1918) Scala Kiosk, and  sigmund nehemias phillipsen (1885-1963) s.n.phillipsen forlag, had done business with the ebbesens and that, in all likelihood, so had johan frederik von huth (1885 -1961) pacht & krone successors, as might any of the other distributors of mary's cards. if one of them directed willumsen to ebbesen as a potential printer of the many thousand of cards being requested, perhaps mary went to århus in 1917, negatives in hand to personally deliver them to Emil. 12

It is possible that she made all the Århus images, while in Århus on this and subsequent trips, and simply left them with Ebbesen to process and print. In his encounter with the police, Ebbesen might have lied to protect Mary from prosecution.

   A second possibility, is that the two photographers worked together. On close examination of the Århus images, a very interesting theory emerges. We notice that all the negatives from Århus involve the same 3 or perhaps 4 models. There is a remote chance that Mary Willumsen actually worked together with Ebba Ebbesen (1888-1933), Emil's sister, to create the Århus images. Ebba grew up in the same studio/darkroom environment as her brother. Ebba also had aspirations to be an artist and drew a postcard of a stylish woman, scantily dressed which S.N. Phillipsen Forlag, a seller of Mary Willumsen's postcards, published. This establishes a potential channel of contact between mary and ebba, as well as a background in photography and postcard production. if mary and ebba went on a picture-taking excursion with a model, this might explain why the pictures fall into three distinct stylistic groups. two groups are exceptionally close in style to the work we know to be mary willumsen's. Telltale mannerisms of posing, lighting, storytelling and composition would make them understandably Mary's pictures using Ebba or other women as models.

   Most important is the third group, a series done at the same outdoor locations. The pictures are so simple and without talent that one would doubt they belonged with the rest if not for the two extant negatives of the same subjects in the Århus Police Historical collection. 13 They are almost all taken frontally and lack any attempt at composition, storytelling or the sense of fun that typify the rest of the postcards.  These images could actually be Ebbas' pictures, taken together with Mary and copying her style.

   The third possibility, was that Emil Ebbesen simply imitated the photography of Mary Willumsen, either on his own initiative or at the suggestion of Brix. We know Mary began her work in 1914 which thus predated Emil's by 3 years. In trying to ascertain if Emil copied Mary's style it would help to know the chronological sequence of Mary's production. 14 We know the first published images appeared in Vores Damer in the summers of 1916 & 1917, and that the Pacht & Crone postcards were issued in 1918. 15    Another element that figures prominently is the term "ENERET", Danish for "copyright". Many of Mary's images from Helgoland and an unidentified Zealand beach bear this mark, either as a handwritten label in the negative or as a blind stamp on the final postcards. Though it does not appear on all the images known to be Willumsen's, it appears on none of the images or negatives from Århus. This bit of evidence actually supports Ebbesen's claim by giving each the two bodies of work a distinguishing characteristic.

Yet, we see again and again more than coincidental similarities between these two sets of photographs. It seems like the work of one photographer but could be the work of two, if one is copying the others' style. It is possible that if Mary saw her work being copied and started losing business, that she might try to protect her images by proclaiming copyright. What could help resolve this dilemma would come from further insight into the dating of Mary's photographs and knowing whether she copyrighted her work from the start or took up the practice later.

   There are two striking differences worth noting, between the work known to be Mary Willumsen's, the pictures claimed by Emil Ebbesen to be his work and pictures known to be by Ebbesen. Both have to do with working techniques and both support the theory that Mary Willumsen is the author of all the work in question. First and foremost, Ebbesen was a professional photographer with an extensive training program beginning as the child of a photographer, continuing as an apprentice and then working for many years as a press photographer. Mary Willumsen by her own admission had no training as a photographer. She may have learned the art from her deceased husband Axel, who once listed himself in the Copenhagen police register 16 as a photographer even though he was a house painter by training. In any case the differences between each of these two photographers' work is like black and white.

   As if by mistake, there is a series of images included in the Århus group, without a doubt Ebbesen's, of a swimming competition in Århus in 1918. They were published in Demokraten July 8,1918 and there is nothing at all erotic or illegal about them; why they were confiscated and not later returned remains a matter of speculation. From these we can see how Emil Ebbesen worked and in turn compare it to the way Mary Willumsen worked. 17

   We must therefore reevaluate what Emil claimed to be his pictures from the beaches, woods and bathing establishments of Århus. Oddly enough, all of these pictures were taken in direct light with many exposures of slight, though deliberate, variation. Based on what we have seen of these two photographers work, it is equally hard to believe that this is Ebbesen's work, as it is hard to believe that it is not Mary Willumsen's. Yet we remain haunted by Ebbesen's claim of authorship and have only speculation to the contrary. Hope remains, however, as more information comes to light that one day the information needed to resolve these questions will find its way to the surface from the depths of obscurity. 18

For the first time, we see a smiling Mary Willumsen at Helgoland taken after 1915. This unique photo only just surfaced, as this issue was going to press, but fortunately in time to be included. Collection Svend Børge Larsen.
 

 

 

Though Mary's postcards were reputedly sold over the counter at Brix's Scala Kiosk, none are visible here among the postcards of royalty, boxers and art works offered for sale. Collection Jørgen Brix.
notes