He was born William Herbert Mortensen on January 27, 1897 in Park City, Utah, the son of Danish immigrants, Agnes and William Peter Mortensen who had immigrated from Copenhagen, Denmark in 1883. During World War I, Mortensen served with the United States Infantry from August 6 1918 to May 16, 1919. At his enlistment, he recorded his occupation as painting.
After his discharge from the army, Mortensen briefly studied illustration at the Art Students League in New York City. In May 1920, Mortensen traveled abroad in Greece, Italy, Egypt and Constantinople to "sketch for educational purposes."
He returned to Utah, then traveled to Hollywood as an escort for his friend’s sister, Fay Wray.
Mortensen began his photographic career taking portraits of Hollywood actors and film stills. In 1931, Mortensen moved to the artist community of Laguna Beach, California where he opened a studio and the William Mortensen School of Photography.
He preferred the pictorialism style of manipulating photographs to produce romanticist painting-like effects. The style brought him criticism from straight photographers of the modern realist movement and, in particular, he carried on a prolonged written debate with Ansel Adams.
His arguments defending romanticism photography led him to be "ostracized from most authoritative canons of photographic history."
In an essay, Larry Lytle wrote "Due to his approach—both technically and philosophically in opposition to straight or purist adherents — he is amongst the most problematic figures in photography in the twentieth-century… historians and critics have described his images as "…anecdotal, highly sentimental, mildly erotic hand-colored prints…", "…bowdlerized versions of garage calendar pin-ups and sadomasochist entertainments…", "…contrived set-ups and sappy facial expressions…", and finally he was described by Ansel Adams as alternately the "Devil", and "the anti-Christ."
Recent years have brought praise for Mortensen’s development of manipulation techniques and a renewed interest in his work.
He wrote nine books about technique in photography in conjunction with George Dunham.
Mortensen was awarded the Hood medal from the Royal Photographic Society in 1949.
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William Mortensen- Torso, 1942
William Mortensen – Youth, 1936
William Mortensen – Youth, 1936
William Mortensen – Legs in stockings with flowers,c.1928 from Monsters and Madonnas Published in 1936
William Mortensen – Torse, 1935
William Mortensen
William Mortensen- Sleep, 1930
William Mortensen – Cinderella, 1936.
William Mortensen- Tarde,1920s
William Mortensen – Figurehead, 1935 From Monsters & Madonnas
William Mortensen, Nude Study
William Mortensen -Wind Blown, 1930s
William Mortensen Joyzelle as Salome, 1930
William Mortensen- Myrdith, 1935
William-Mortensen- The Kiss, 1930
William Mortensen- Myrdrith,1931
William Mortensen- A Romany Maid ,1935
Nude With Peacock, ca. 1928
William Mortensen- rope dancer, 1934 {photogravure}
William Mortensen- Café Dancer ,1930s
William Mortensen – La Chatte, 1935
William Mortensen- Death of Hypatia, 1930s ;
"Note the quality of contemplative passivity lifts the picture above the merely episodic, and makes this moment much more menacing than it would have been had the figures been actively engaged in fighting and clawing at each other." — Mortensen
William Mortensen- Girl of Zaragoza,1938
William Mortensen – Tragedy, 1930s
William Mortensen -Fragment, From Monsters & Madonnas, Camera Craft Publishing Co., San Francisco, 1935.
About this portfolio: of 20 originals brown-tone silver-gelatin bromoil prints on watercolor stock.
“Mortensen’s work emphasizes the dramatic narrative and staged look of film with a twist of Surrealism” (Michelle de Farra). Dismissed by most photography critics as “problematic” and “a pictorialist gone Hollywood,” 1930s celebrity photographer William Mortensen conducted some of the most ingenious experiments in photographic printing in the history of the art, employing various texture screens and tonal abrasion techniques of his own original design. “Mortensen was a restless and relentless darkroom technician. He invented his own texture screens, an abrasion tone process which employed the use of a razor blade to carefully scrape away emulsion off the print, and used pumice first and then in later years switched to soft carbon pencil to change the tone… He was also master of the bromoil and bromoil transfer processes and the paper negative. During all this he kept his hand in the etching process, learned from his early days in New York” (Larry Lytel). These 20 images on watercolor stock display Mortensen’s range of inventive bromoil printing techniques, from imitations of soft-ground gravure to tones created with razor blade, pumice and etching needle. In Mortensen’s words, “Lots of hard work may go into a picture, yet it must come off easily. That which is consummated in dull drudgery cannot help but be dull.” “Sadly, little remains of Mortensen’s artistic output: most of his negatives are missing, whereabouts unknown. He also left few notes or letters” (Robert Jones).
William Mortensen- Salomé, c 1928
William Mortensen, Nude with Peacock
William Mortensen – Spider Torture 1926 published in Monsters and Madonnas,1936
"If the inquisitors still failed to find the evidence they sought or to extract a confession, she was subjected to the additional persuasion of torture. After being given certain preliminary tortures, she was strung up and given the final opportunity to confess and recant. This is the moment represented in The Heretic." –Mortensen
William Mortensen – Anatomy Lesson , 1920
William Mortensen- Café Dancer ,1930s
William Mortensen- The Maid of Tunis; Romany Maid; Victoria,Rebecca, Patricia, 1932
William Mortensen- Ko-Ko, 1935
William Mortensen-
MORTENSEN William -Monsters & Madonnas, San Francisco Camera Craft Publishing Company, 1936
Advertissement for-Monsters & Madonnas, 1936
William Mortensen, The Command to Look
William Mortensen, Black Magic66 A two page spread from The Command to Look.
"…the eye is jerked by a series of abrupt zig-zags up to the startling and ferocious climax of the face." — Mortensen
William Mortensen- The Model A book on the problem Of Posing
William Mortensen- Woman with Parasol , 1928
William Mortensen- Woman with Parasol , 1921
William Mortensen- Woman with Parasol , 1928
William Mortensen- Woman with Parasol , 1928
William Mortensen- Woman with Parasol & and himself , 1921
