How objects speak
5. "Test Shot" Portrait of Melba Dupre
Date: c. 1928
Medium: Black and white photograph
Credit Line: Gift of Walter W. Matsuura
Object ID: 2003.119.6A
This "test shot" of Melba Yonemura was arranged by her mother Camille in the late 1920s. After finding work at MGM Studios, Camille attempted to fashion her daughter as a movie starŅan "Oriental" Clara Bow. Camille rechristened her daughter "Melba Dupre" and presented her daughter as her sister, in order to conceal her own age and the fact that she had been married to an Asian. While the photograph is a portrait, it is also a fabrication of a character, one with a different name and history than the woman depicted.