Fred Hartsook was an American photographer and owner of a California studio chain. In later life, Hartsook owned a resort in Humboldt County and two ranches in Southern California, where he raised prized Holstein cattle.
The success of Hartsook’s photography studio allowed him to open locations along the Pacific Coast, such as in San Francisco and Oakland. McGroarty describes the photographic business of Hartsookwas as “the largest worldwide” in 1921. Hartsook became known for his celebrity clients, including silent-era Hollywood actors such as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Carlyle Blackwell, entrepreneur Henry Ford and opera singer Geraldine Farrar, and politicians like Champ Clark and Joseph Gurney Cannon.
Fred Hartsook married Bess Hesby in 1919, who was “Miss Liberty” at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. He died in 1930 at the age of 53.
Here are some spectacular portraits of classic beauties captured in the 1910s by Fred Hartsook.
