Mark
A. Vieira is America's foremost expert on Hollywood glamour photography.
In 1975, his skilled darkroom work brought him to the attention of
legendary photographer George Hurrell, who was then preparing his
first book, The Hurrell Style. Vieira helped Hurrell secure
images he had shot forty-five years earlier and then printed them
to his specifications. Thus began Vieira’s work with the artists of
the studio system, including Clarence Sinclair Bull, Laszlo Willinger,
and Ted Allan.
Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits, Vieira’s critical biography of
the artist, was published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in 1997. It was
the first book to show Hurrell’s work in accurate chronology, to describe
it in the context of the personalities he captured, and to analyze
it in accessible photographic terms.
Vieira is the only contemporary American photographer making portraits
with Hurrell’s exact technique, using large format camera, incandescent
lights, full negative retouching, and fiber-base paper. He executes
these portraits with Hurrell’s own 18-inch Verito lens in the historic
Granada Buildings, where Hurrell had his original studio.