Louis Van Oeyen Cleveland Photo?

[prewarsports]

The photo is signed by Van Oeyen, the pass was not signed by him but written by a team secretary or someone else on his behalf. I've handled a large amount of his images in the last few years out of both the NEA archive (where he was a staff photographer for several years in the late 1910's and early 1920's) as well as the Cleveland Plain Dealer where they had a tremendous amount of his originals as well. Like Conlon, he hand wrote many of the inscriptions and notes on the backs of images and there are probably 50-100 others out there that I have seen with the handwritten credit on the front in ink or even pencil. Many of the ones with the handwritten notes were from players estates and not from newspapers. He was friendly with many players, owners, and executives and it was common for him to gift images to people. Last year a Cobb photo appeared at market with a long inscription from Van Oeyen on the back for example. The image is wonderful with typical early Van Oeyen quality. For my money, he was the best photographer in the game from 1906-1918 when he freelanced. His paper, execution and production far exceeded Conlon, Bain, and Paul Thompson at the same time but for whatever reason he took jobs at newspapers and shifted his model after the War.

Rhys