Letter from David Robinson to accompany our CHAPLIN print
Dear Collector,
This print is reproduced from a unique image of Charles Chaplin in his “Little Tramp” costume that does not figure among the “official” images of the great clown, all now carefully preserved in the Chaplin archives in Switzerland.
The photograph was not made by an official studio stills photographer, but by Chaplin’s cameraman, Jack Wilson, who worked throughout the 1920s as second-in-command to Chaplin’s principal cinematographer Roland (“Rollie”) H. Totheroh. The photograph, taken around the time of The Kid (1921) suggests that Wilson had briefly an ambition to be a portrait photographer, and clearly Chaplin encouraged him sufficiently to pose for this picture, which Wilson has proudly signed in the negative.
There is no evidence that the experiment was ever repeated. The photograph was never used for any purpose, and the only known print was sent by Wilson to his family in Scotland. From them it eventually came into my own collection. I found it one of the most evocative pictures of the Little Tramp, and have used it as the exclusive logo of my biography of Chaplin, “Chaplin His Life and Art”. This has enabled me to share the image with admirers of Chaplin across the world, and I am delighted that this limited edition will make it available to more collectors, in the finest possible reproduction.
David Robinson