Collage of two opera performers

May’s Photo Studio, Untitled portrait of an Opera performer with handkerchief, c. 1920s. Wylie Wong Collection of May’s Studio at Stanford Libraries.

May’s Photo Studio/Yung Cheong, Portrait of Mei Lanfang as the Flower Fairy, hand-colored, rephotographed collaged photograph, c.1930. Wylie Wong Collection of May’s Studio at Stanford Libraries.

At the beginning of their enterprise, Leo and May studied photography with W. Wesley Swadley, who was among the most successful photographers of his time, renowned for his panoramas. They also mastered many experimental techniques such as “dodging and burning,” to the degree that their nephew, Ted Jue, described Leo as a “magician in the darkroom.” The May’s Studio used these techniques in their promotional photographs for San Francisco’s Cantonese opera renaissance to suggest supernatural and otherworldly scenes.

Cantonese opera scholar Shirley Ng has identified this portrait of Mei Lanfang as the Flower Fairy as the source for this May’s Studio appropriation - which added hand-coloring and an atmospheric night sky. The Flower Fairy sprays “flowers onto the earth as a blessing to the people.” The photograph is reproduced in Mei’s autobiography, and the original was taken by the Yung Cheong Studio in Shanghai, located at "Shanghai Great New Avenue Third Street, South End".