Spymaster's Wife, Calypso Liddell, 1935

Hon. Calypso Baring Liddell was the daughter of Cecil Baring, 3rd Baron Revelstoke, and Maude Louise Baring, tobacco heiress. This photograph was published on July, 3, 1935 when she left her husband and took her 4 children to the United States. Her husband attempted to block her entry. Her husband was Guy Maynard Liddell, Britain’s most celebrated wartime spymaster. Guy ran a 'double-cross' system of agents inside Nazi Germany. As head of MI5's espionage operations during World War Two, he was credited with devastating intelligence coups that struck at the heart of the German war effort and led one historian to describe him as 'the man who put intelligence into spying’. Between 1939-1953, he kept a diary, codenamed ‘Wallflowers,’ and it is considered the single most important British intelligence document of the 20th century.
 
This press photograph is overpainted for publication in a newspaper. From the 1890s until the digital era, newspapers enhanced photographs by outlining and overpainting, which often resulted in unique multi-media artworks.This photograph represents the best of manipulated photography, as was described in the 2009 text, News Art: Manipulated Photographs from The Burns Archive (PowerHouse Press). While the photograph may have been reproduced in hundreds of newspapers and there may be other copies of the original press print, this is the only one overpainted and used for publication. This beautifully painted photograph is not just a lovely portrait but a piece of photographic history.
 
Manipulated photographic press print with published article on back.
Format: Painted Silver Gelatin Print
Size: 7.5 x 9.5 in
Condition: Excellent