Suburban cinemas were often pretty comfortless places. While the entrance could be quite imposing with the box office generally at the top of a flight of white marble steps, presumably to accommodate the rake, the auditorium itself was often not much more than a hangar, the aisle carpeted but he seats on lino or even bare concrete. Wartime meant there was no ice cream but enroute to the cinema we would generally call at a sweet shop and get what Dad called ‘some spice’, provided, of course, we had the points, sweet rationing the most irksome of wartime restrictions and still in force as late as 1952 when I went in the army.
Alan Bennett
Walter Sickert The Gallery at the Old Mogul, (1906). This painting is thought to be the first significant artwork featuring modern cinema. According to art historian Richard Morris, The Old Mogul was the original name for the Middlesex Music Hall in Drury Lane variously known as ‘The Mogul Tavern’ or ‘The Old Mo.’Poster by Henri Ott, 1953DIE WUNDERFAHRT (1929) Sándor BortnyikPet of the Met Don Freeman 1953The theatre in west Hannelore Marek Peter Spier 1965Russian Ballet I, by German painter August Macke (1912). Kunsthalle BremenWalter Bayes 1917Helene Funke (1869-1957) In the Lodge, 1904In the Box (1879) by Mary CassattMIXED NOTICES (1963) Osbert Lancaster
Cinemas were mushrooming and street advertising was crucial in 1910 when U.K. artist G.L. Stampa created this drawing for Punch Magazine.
Amore e morte 1979DAS IMAGINÄRE PORTRÄT (1965) Vladimir Fuka William Shakespeare theatreSeymour Joseph Guy – At the Opera 1887Mary Stevenson Cassatt In the LogeRamon Casas (Spanish, 1866-1932) theatre
Illustration by Anton Franciscus Pieck (19 April 1895 – 24 November 1987) old school movies
Sybil Andrews, Concert Hall (1929)
Verney L. Danvers Underground Theatres Poster 1926
‘A view from the Royal box of the Rossini Opera House in Pesaro’ (circa 1900) Illustration by Achille Wildi, 1969
At the Opera, Harrison Fisher, c. 1901
First row orchestra, 1951, Edward Hopper
Arthur Getz (1913-1996) New Yorker cover 1961
At the Theatre by Ward Brackett (1914-2006)
Edward Hopper – A Theater Entrance (c1906-10)
‘Christmas at Dreamthorpe’ Illustration by Charles Edmund Brock, 1920Marcellin Auzolle French (1862 – 1942) 1896
Arthur Getz (1913-1996) 1958
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), Charwomen in Theater, 1946
George Hughes Theater Rehearsal With Maid
From the French children’s picture book series about pigs named Gaston and Josephine
Ancinemation: The curious act of waiting in line to see a movie and watching exiting movie goers’ reactions to see if they liked the movie or not.
Cinemuck: The sticky substance on the floor of a movie theater.
– from the Sniglet entry of Wikipedia
Paris Opéra Nocturne by Daniel Gerhartz. American painterBallerinas in Pink , 1867 by Edgar DegasKoiso Ryohei (1903-1988)Jean Louis Marcel Cosson (1878-1956) Dancers In Dressing Room 1930, French, Post-ImpressionistLaura Knight (1877-1970)Laura Knight (1877-1970)Piet van der Hem, 1885 Wirdum – 1961 La Haye (The Hague) In The Theatre 1930Dancer Tilting, 1883, Edgar Degas 1834-1917Cressida and the Opera by Paula HarrisA Play To The Festival by Mabel Esther Allan
