This is a video montage of the RACHEL Portfolio for Edana Romney, designed by Owen Hyde Clark, set to Debussy’s Clare de Lune.
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I’ve owned this portfolio for over 33 years, and for most of those years I couldn’t recognize who the artist was. I found out that Edana Romney was a British actress and screen writer, most famous for her movie The Corridor of Mirrors, that she starred in, and co-wrote, in 1949. I researched who Rachel was . She was Rachel Eliza Felix, a legendary French Tragedienne, of 19th century France. A real star is born person, who went from singing on the streets of Paris, as a young girl, to performing for French Royalty, as a young woman on top of the theatrical world
Whose initials are these?
But who was the artist behind the interesting signature device on the portfolio title page, and most of the original costume design paintings? Trying to find out what the letters stood for was frustrating. So much so, that I would return the portfolio to my flat file, time and again, after looking at each painting in the portfolio one more time.
Being an actor, and involved in theater, myself, it occurred to me that theater people work together as teams all the time. Teams of actors work together in more than one film together, because they have good chemistry, and their films make money. Creative teams work together too. Including costume designers. So I researched who the costume designer for Corridor of Mirrors was, since Edana Romney was the female star of that movie, and I discovered it was Owen Hyde Clark. It all fit. The O at the beginning of the signature device was for Owen. The C at the end of the signature device was for Clark. And the connecting strokes between O and C was for Hyde. Owen Hyde Clark.
Who was Owen Hyde Clark?
Besides designing dresses for Edana Romney for Corridor of Mirrors in 1949, and over 60 original pen and ink and gouache watercolor costume design paintings for the Rachel Portfolio, in 1947, also for Edana Romney, Owen Hyde Clark later went on to becoming Head of Couture for House of Worth, London, in the mid 1950’s. Dresses that he designed for House of Worth, London, in the 1950’s, are now in the permanent collection of the V&A Museum in London, England.
You can see photos of the costume designs for the Rachel Portfolio by Owen Hyde Clark, created in 1947 for Edana Romney, below. The paper size for the pen and ink and gouache costume designs is 22″ x 15″.
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