Most likely an advertising photograph, this profile view of a stylish model reaching towards a pitcher set off against an embellished backdrop was taken by commercial photographer Walter M. Westervelt.

Walter Montgomery Westervelt: 1887-1969

Based in New Jersey, American advertising photographer Walter M. Westervelt exhibited one his photographs on behalf of The Pictorial Photographers of America on the occasion of the Opening of The Art Center in New York City in October, 1921. (American Photography-Feb. 1922) A major client beginning this same year was the upscale Dobbs Hats. In addition to him working as an illustrator around this time, Westervelt’s pictorialist photographs of New York City scenes and the exterior of a retail location for Dobbs Hats were published in Vanity Fair and other magazines. Other online resources state Kodak was a client, and that he was based in Great Notch, New Jersey. In 1942, by the time he registered for the draft during WW II, he was living in Passaic, New Jersey and teaching advertising design and photography at the Cooper Union.

Commercial Photographs & Illustration by Walter M. Westervelt: ca. 1921-ca. 1943-5: Top L: Dobbs Hats: Exterior of Fifth Ave. Showroom, published: Vanity Fair, September, 1921, p. 26. Top M: Advertisement shown at the Exhibition of Art Directors Club, Art Center, New York. April 5-30, 1924. Published in Third Annual of Advertising Art. Top R: Photograph for Dobbs Hats in The American Printer, July, 1927. Bottom: Design and Paper, Number Sixteen—Issued By Marquardt & Company, Inc. Fine Papers, 155 Spring Street, New York, 1943-5? (Credits: Online and ABE Books)

Prolific, by the early 1940’s, Westervelt had a one-man show at Haber and Fink, a camera store and gallery at 12 Warren street in lower Manhattan. The following review appeared in The New York Sun, Thursday, January 29, 1942:

Little Subject Matter Combined With Much Imagination

Double Exposure Method Used

Westervelt Also Gets Most Out of Shadows as Auxiliary Backgrounds.

By Norris Harkness

Once in a blue moon a set of pictures comes along that calls for superlatives in describing them and that is the kind of show that Walter M. Westervelt is now exhibiting in the Haber and Fink gallery at 12 Warren street. The superlatives will have to be applied to several things about them. In the first place the photographic technic leaves nothing to be desired. The work is clean in every way and the prints have held every delicate tone throughout the full range of the negatives But that part of these pictures —vitally important though it is— is incidental to the imagination which Mr. Westervelt has used to transform the simplest subject matter into interesting and even exciting pictures.

Calling on Imagination

For instance, how many photographers would have thought to use a bit of rope and two clothespins to make a picture like “Spring” even if they had the skill to light the subject so effectively. And how many could find a picture like “Witch’s Broom” in a piece of cloth and two small branches? “Good Morning” is another that relies upon imagination for its effect. Two exposures of a straw hat and nothing more are sufficient to get the idea across perfectly. “The Finders” uses a common tool of both artist and photographers for a picture that again contains nothing that might not be found in any home, and the several photograms like “Empty” and “The Tumbler” are in the same class. “Through Wood” shows a continuity of thought that is too often missing in most shows. The double exposure method used so well by Mr. Westervelt is called into play to show the bit and the wood as well as the purpose of the tool. And check “Refraction” for the way shadows can be used to create an effective picture from the simplest figure. Try to eliminate the shadow and see how much would be left of the picture.

You’ll find many others in the thirty in this show that will arouse just as much admiration and you’ll be particularly interested in the way Mr. Westervelt has used shadows as auxiliary background material. It may be that you’ll agree with us that “Kipling” and “Tooth and Nail” really ought to be shown horizontally rather than vertically and you probably won’t be as excited by the table tops as by the simpler exercises in lighting and tone, but you’ll enjoy every print in the show and you’ll find inspiration in them for your own work.

Knows What Picture Needs

Perhaps the explanation for some of Mr. Westervelt’s wizardry comes from the fact that he is the art director in a large advertising agency and a teacher of advertising design and photography at Cooper Union. He knows, through his training for his work, the value of simplicity In pictures and what a picture needs to be good. In other words, he is not trying as so many photographers do to build a picture without knowing what makes it a picture.

Whether you look at this show for the pure enjoyment of first rank photographic pictures—which implies both good photography and good pictures— or study it for its splendid compositions, or make notes of the way he has utilized the simple things that are to be found everywhere, you will find it a valuable show in every way. (p. 14)