Anton BRUEHL
Australia 1900 – United States of America 1982
United States from 1919

Eleanor Holm at Hudson River 1931
gelatin silver photograph
Recto, signed in pencil on support, lower right, 'Anton Bruehl'.
image 34.6 (h) x 27.2 (w) cm
Gift of American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia, Inc., New York, NY, USA, made possible with the generous support of Anton Bruehl Jr, 2006.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA 2006.123

This was taken before Eleanor Holm (1913–2004) became an Olympic swimming gold medallist at the Los Angeles Summer Games in 1932. She was famously suspended from the Olympic team in 1936 on route to Germany for ‘excessive behaviour’. According to the team doctor, Holm was found at a drinking party on the ship in a state approaching a coma though Holm maintained that her suspension arose from a personal grudge held by the team leader. Already approached by Hollywood studios after her success in Los Angeles, she starred in the 1936 film Tarzan’s Revenge with fellow Olympian, Glenn Morris. She married impresario, showman and lyricist, Billy Rose, and featured in his fabulous Aquacade at the New York World’s Fair of 1939. Although Bruehl later mostly worked in his studio, images like this prove that he also ventured out into the sunlight – here capturing the youth, vitality and spontaneity of a seventeen-year-old Holm.