The only extant photograph of American bluesman <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Patton" class="extiw" title="w:Charley Patton">Charley Patton</a>, circa 1929. Patton sits at a chair with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_(guitar)" class="extiw" title="w:Stella (guitar)">Stella</a> guitar. The portrait was likely taken in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafton,_Wisconsin" class="extiw" title="w:Grafton, Wisconsin">Grafton, Wisconsin</a>—the headquarters of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Records" class="extiw" title="w:Paramount Records">Paramount Records</a>—at either a photography studio or recording studio. An image of Patton's face (cropped from this photo) had been discovered in the early 1960s, but the full portrait was not uncovered until 2002 when John Tefteller found it while searching for blues records and ephemera on a trip to Grafton and Port Washington.
<ul><li><b>Source:</b> Tefteller, John (2003). "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/DinosaurDiscs/78+Quarterly+No+12.pdf">Gold in Grafton! Long lost Paramount photos, artwork, 78s surface after 70 years!</a>" <i>78 Quarterly</i>. No. 12. pp. 12–39. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151017174109/https://s3.amazonaws.com/DinosaurDiscs/78+Quarterly+No+12.pdf">Archived</a> from the original on October 17, 2015.</li></ul>
Photo published by Paramount Records and the F. W. Boerner Company. Photographer uncredited and unknown.
The full photo was first published in 1929 or 1930 and rediscovered/republished in 2002 after it had entered the public domain.
<ul><li><b>Original source</b>: The photo was originally published in at least two different forms: a Paramount publicity photo (most likely distributed to newspapers) and a 1930 Paramount promotional calendar distributed by the F. W. Boerner Company. (Boerner was responsible for Paramount's graphics and marketing from 1930–1934, and his company distributed the remainder of Paramount's unsold records after the label went out of business in 1932.) The tighter crop showing just Patton's face was published in a 1929 Paramount supplement.</li>
<li><b>Instant source</b>: High-res scan via <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.newsounds.org/story/paramount-records-grand-daddy-all-record-labels/">NewSounds.org</a>. Retouched by uploader; see unretouched original in upload history below.</li></ul>