Mabel Sykes

Mabel Huxley was born in Homewood, Illinois, the daughter of Charles DeWitt Huxley and Henrietta H. Zimmer Huxley.^[1][2]

Sykes learned the photography business from her first husband, and had her own studio in Chicago's Loop after their divorce in 1914. She opened a second studio on Chicago's Northside in 1921.^[3] She photographed performers including Rudolph Valentino and Sibyl Sammis-MacDermid. She also photographed portraits for professionals including lawyer Clarence Darrow^[4] and oral surgeon Thomas Lewis Gilmer.^[5] Landscape photos by Sykes appeared in a Sierra Club publication.^[6] She also took society portraits^[7][8][9] and school yearbook photos.^[10][11][12] She retired from the photography business in 1931.^[13]

Sykes was known as "Rudolph Valentino's favorite photographer".^[14]

• 
  Clarence Darrow
• 
  "Baby" Payne
• 
  Sibyl Sammis-MacDermid
• 
  Isham Jones and his Orchestra
• 
  Thomas Lewis Gilmer
• 
  William Ross Grant

Huxley married photographer Melvin H. Sykes in 1902; they divorced in 1914.^[15] She married salesman Alfred J. Barsanti, in 1917; they divorced in 1929.^[16][17] She died in 1963, at the age of 80, in Chicago.^[18]