Richard Gordon Matzene
{{Short description|European-born American photographer and art dealer (c.1875–1950)}}
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| image = Matzene LCCN2014686325.jpg
| birth_name = Jens Rudolph Matzene
| birth_date = {{circa|{{birth year|1875}}}}
| birth_place = Europe
| death_date = {{death year and age|1950|1875}}
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| occupation = Photographer, art dealer
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| spouse = Antonia Baumer
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Richard Gordon Matzene (born Jens Rudolph Matzene; {{Circa|1875}} – 1950) was a European-born American photographer and art dealer. He took many portrait photographs of members of high society.
Early life
Matzene was born {{Circa|1875}} in Europe, either in Denmark, Hungary or in England. He took the title of Count, although there is no evidence that he was one.{{cite web |title=Studio, Matzene |url=https://broadway.cas.sc.edu/content/studio-matzene |website=Broadway Photographs |publisher=College of Arts and Sciences - University of South Carolina |accessdate=December 16, 2018}}
Career
Matzene became a portrait photographer for members of high society in Chicago in 1900. He moved to Syracuse, New York and opened an art gallery in New York City in 1909. After he went bankrupt in 1911, Matzene moved to Los Angeles, California, where he became a photographer for Hollywood actors and actresses. With David Hartford, he co-directed It Happened in Paris, a 1919 film starring Madame Yorska. In 1920, he took portrait photographs of women from Montana, and they were published in The Anaconda Standard, the main newspaper in Anaconda, Montana.{{cite news |title=World's Greatest Society Photographer to Make Portraits for Sunday Standard |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/350730764/?terms=%22gordon%2BMatzene%22 |accessdate=December 16, 2018 |work=The Anaconda Standard |date=February 1, 1920|page=1|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration }}
Matzene traveled internationally to take portrait photographs of the British Royal Family, as well Japanese and Chinese politicians like President Li Yuanhong.{{cite news |title=Noted Artist Is Visitor To Butte. R. Gordon Matzene, Well-Known In Butte and Anaconda, Comes Here. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/349001940/?terms=%22Matzene%22 |accessdate=December 16, 2018 |work=The Anaconda Standard |location=Anaconda, Montana |date=July 28, 1925|page=5|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration }} He was described as "one of the world's most renowned photographic portrait artists" by The Anaconda Standard in 1925. Two years later, he photographed the Nepalese Royal Family.{{cite web |title=Matzene Art Collection |url=https://www.poncacityok.gov/232/Matzene-Art-Collection |website=Ponca City, Oklahoma |accessdate=December 16, 2018}}
Matzene moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma in the 1920s, and he became an art dealer and patron. Between October 1926 and February 1927, Matzene was the resident photographer at the newly opened Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, branch of the Steffens-Colmer Studio, which was based in Vancouver, British Columbia.{{cite news |title=Christmas Photographs by Matzene Are Beautiful Seffens-Colmer Studio.... |work=The Daily Colonist |date=October 10, 1926|page=7|via=BritishColonist.ca|url=http://archive.org/stream/dailycolonist0926uvic_33#page/n6/mode/1up |accessdate=February 6, 2020}}{{cite news |title=Announcement. Matzene will discontinue his sittings in Victoria on February 25 Seffens-Colmer Studio.... |work=The Daily Colonist |date=February 12, 1927|page=7|via=BritishColonist.ca|url=http://archive.org/stream/dailycolonist0127uvic_5kp#page/n6/mode/1up |accessdate=February 6, 2020}}
By 1932, he was described in the press as "perhaps [...] the greatest antiques collector in the world."{{cite news |title=Min's Musings |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/484177209/?terms=%22gordon%2BMatzene%22 |accessdate=December 16, 2018 |work=The Monitor-Press |location=Wellington, Kansas |date=October 27, 1932|page=4|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration |quote=Some of his latest acquisitions are a lovely marble statue, "Ophelia," done by David Edstrom, noted Los Angeles sculptor and a Chinese War God brought to him by an English collector, Gordon Matzene, who perhaps is the greatest collector of antiques in the world.}} Matzene donated statues and paintings from his art collection to the University of Oklahoma's Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art in 1935.{{cite news |last1=Broady |first1=Joe |title=OU Art Educator Oscar Jacobson, 84, Dies at Norman |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/450223050/?terms=%22Oscar%2BJacobson%22 |accessdate=December 15, 2018 |work=The Daily Oklahoman |location=Oklahoma City, Oklahoma |date=September 20, 1966|page=40|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration }} The Ponca City Library received another donation in the 1950s.
Personal life and death
References
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{{commons category|Richard Gordon Matzene}}
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Category:People from Ponca City, Oklahoma
Category:American portrait photographers
Category:20th-century American photographers
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