On offer is a striking pair of original c.1950s Jantzen fashion photographs associated with Havana, Cuba, depicting two unidentified women described on the reverses as film and television performers.

The first shows a woman modeling a fitted plaid Jantzen swimsuit with a dramatic wide-brimmed hat. The second shows a woman outdoors among palm trees in a striped resort ensemble with high-waisted trousers and a suspender-style bodice. Both photographs prominently display the distinctive Jantzen script logo.

 

The reverses make the pair particularly interesting. Both are handwritten:

·       “Artista de Cine y TV”

·       [“Film and TV Artist”]

 

Both also bear the purple stamp of Oscar's – Todo en Fotografía, Ayestarán 166, a Havana photographic business.

 

The women's identities have not been established. Nor can we determine whether Jantzen commissioned these photographs, whether they were photographed in Cuba, or whether Oscar's produced, distributed or simply handled the prints. What the photographs themselves securely establish is the combination of Jantzen fashion imagery, Havana photographic provenance and period identification of the women as film and television performers.

 

Offered together, they make an unusual surviving pair connecting mid-century fashion, entertainment and pre-Revolutionary Havana.

 

INCLUDED

·       Two (2) original vintage black-and-white Jantzen fashion photographs.

·       Both retain Jantzen branding, handwritten “Artista de Cine y TV” annotations and Oscar's – Todo en Fotografía, Ayestarán 166 Havana stamps.

 

HISTORICAL INTEREST

Jantzen was an important name in 20th-century American swimwear and resort fashion, but the Havana context is what makes these considerably more interesting than ordinary Jantzen advertising.

 

There is independent evidence that Jantzen had a conspicuous presence in Havana by this period. Cuban-born scholar Roberto González Echevarría recalled arriving in Havana around 1949–50 and being transfixed by a Jantzen billboard on the Malecón showing a diver repeatedly plunging into blue neon waves.

 

Against that background, these photographs provide an intriguing physical connection between Jantzen and Havana's entertainment culture. Each woman was separately described as an “Artista de Cine y TV,” while both prints carry the same Oscar's photographic-business stamp at Ayestarán 166.

 

The precise purpose of the photographs remains unknown, so I would not call them a Cuban Jantzen advertising campaign. Their appeal is actually better without stretching the evidence: they are two remarkably attractive period Jantzen photographs with documented Havana provenance and contemporary film/television annotations.

 

Inventory # LT076