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One of my favorite things I’ve resorted to since lockdown began is to follow an image. It could be any image; an image of a book cover, a piece of art, a vinyl cover, a cemetery grave marker…whatever it might be, I’ve learned to see something, appreciate it, and then dig into “whatever it is that made the image.” I typically value images of a more “esoteric nature.” Religious, occult, or otherwise, it’s an area of human knowledge that absolutely fascinates me.
One source of my “growing” knowledge base is the Twitter account Pagan Hollywood. Maintained by Charles Lieurance, there are many images posted by Lieurance, and I find it fascinating to research the background of the illustration. The one above, The Mirror of Prophecy, caught my eye, and so I began the research to attempt to understand the image better. Why would the photograph of the artist, Samuel Adelstein, be added to a Twitter feed of “Expressionism, Artifice, Tableaux, Ritual, Apotheosis, Exoticism, Occultism, Psychedelia, Decadence & the Grotesque in Cinema?”
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The photographer is indeed Samuel Adelstein. There isn’t much knowledge regarding the artist online, so I returned to my trusty Newspapers.com account to see what I could find. Adelstein lived in the early 20th century, and per his obituary in the June 1, 1934 *San Francisco Examiner,” was a member of the Pacific Lodge No 136 and a member of the Bay City Lodge No 71. The latter is a lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the former a Free and Accepted Masons lodge. I assume that is how the work was added to the Pagan Hollywood feed. Adelstein died on May 29, 1934.
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From the little there was on Newspapers.com, it looks like Adelstein was a photographer and documenter of the Southern California. His style was described as “making enlargements from sharp negatives using a soft-focus Verito lens.” Adelstein was an active Mason in the San Francisco area, and was perhaps a life long resident of the San Francisco. Some things of interest I found included:
- Adelstein was arrested by the US Secret Service in 1917 while taking photos of seagulls at San Francisco’s Goat Island while passing by the island in a ferry. As he was of German ancestry, it was believed he was taking photos of a naval training base on the island
- Colored photographs of California landscape scenes were on display at a Masonic smoker event at Lodge 136 in May of 1918
*That same month and year, Adelstein presented a series of colored nude photos at an Odd Fellow Woman Celebration event - His photography was used exclusively for a 32 page book documenting the Santa Barbara, California landscape
Most of the news coverage focuses on his work with the Fillmore Street Improvement Association, San Francisco street work, and even some San Francisco tunnel controversy.
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His work is almost haunting; this image above is highly spiritual and spectral in nature. What an interesting time to have been in San Francisco and immersed in the traditions of Masonry. It would be interesting to be able to look into this artist's work; I have already went ahead and added his name to my eBay searches. My niece has family origins in Santa Barbara, so what a nice gift it would be to find that book and give it to her in the future.
These little literary adventures are rewarding to me. To think about a single souls life that could very well have been lost to time is frightening. The very least one can do is share some thoughts, research, and images with others as time moves on. Samuel Adelstein's work looks highly devoted to the divine feminine and nature...something that I'm sure that many more people were aware of in the early part of the 20th century. Despite being labeled an "amateur photographer," his work will be something I hope to collect in the future.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any additional information regarding Adelstein, I'd love to hear it!