Photographer Unknown
Untitled, c. 1962
B&W photograph
10" x 8"

Bruce Bellas
(aka Bruce
of Los Angeles)
Mark Edwards, c. 1963
B&W photograph
10" x 8"

AURA OF INNOCENCE
PHYSIQUE PHOTOGRAPHY
OF THE 1950s AND '60s IN
THE LLGAF PERMANENT COLLECTION
by Rob Hugh Rosen

I spend a significant amount of time looking at erotic art. I collect erotic art. I make erotic art. As co-director of the Queer Men's Erotic Art Workshop at LLGAF, I pride myself on generating an environment for the creation of more erotic art. I have assisted in mounting exhibits of it at the LLGAF, but I have never before written anything on the subject. I respond to it intuitively, even viscerally, but seldom verbally.

When I was asked to curate a small show at the LLGAF of vintage physique photography from it's permanent collection, a working title was initially suggested. Because of the many images of nude men, or very nearly nude men, posed with swords or cowboy hats, or with other accessories, the idea was presented that this material was campy, corny, or kitschy. The suggested working title of the exhibition was CAMP, CORNBALL, AND KITSCH. Most of the artists with whom I've spoken shared the opinion that these sensibilities were in some way expressed. When certain images were viewed a bit disdainfully, the term 'kitsch' would come up. But other images, much appreciated, might be described as camp. Reed Massengill, one of the foremost authorities on the subject of physique photography and famous for his love of these photographs and respect for their makers, has used the word campy in describing it. In his introduction to the book, Champion (Goliath, 2003), on the work of the photographer Walt Kundzicz, he says "I hope you'll admire these cheeky, campy, colorful images as much as I do..."

So, I began thinking about what I would select for the show and also what I'd write about it, and it occurred to me that I was not clear as to the precise meanings of these words: camp, corn, and kitsch. So I went to the Oxford American Dictionary, which defines kitsch as "garish, pretentious, or sentimental art, usually vulgar and worthless, i.e. plastic models of Venus de Milo." Nothing in this definition seemed to fit. I looked in Webster's and found another definition: "something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality" Well, I thought, yes, these images could be said to appeal to popular taste but I don't believe they are of poor quality. I concluded that I didn't feel comfortable describing these lovable images as kitsch.

Then I looked up CORNY. Oxford has four definitions: "a) trite b) feebly humorous c) sentimental d) out of date." Now it's become more complicated: first, I refuse to agree that any of this material is trite; and second, the image, such as that of a man hiding his genitals with a physique magazine, is witty. But I don't respond to this humor as being feeble. Indeed, I'm totally charmed by it. And there certainly is nothing sentimental about these photos. As to being "out of date," when these images were being made, in the 1950s and 60s, they were novel, often experimental, and even involved risk-taking. So I didn't want to describe these images as being corny either.

Finally, CAMP. Oxford says: "done in an exaggerated way for effect, affected, effeminate." Again, I don't see this. I simply don't view the art of vintage physique photography as being campy. To me, it is erotic art. Susan Sontag, in her seminal essay, Notes On Camp, describes how things that are camp are about the stylizing of content. I find that stylization in the form of cowboy hats, swords, and other such accessories evokes an erotic expressiveness from the naked male figure. This stylization emphasizes, and even creates, the erotic content that distinguishes these images. Although the term camp contained something of my response to these photos, I finally decided that I could not embrace any of these words. I would need another title.

Even before I was a teenager, I was interested in art history and acquiring books on the subject. Of course I was especially fascinated by photographs of Greek statues. Reproductions of paintings involving robust male nude heroes and gods by Poussin, Rubens, and other such masters also kept me tantalized. Then one day in 1962, at the age of fourteen, I was exploring a little candy-and-magazine store near my neighborhood train stop in the borough of Queens, and I encountered a partially-obscured display of little physique magazines. I had never seen such things before. The cover of each one featured a different virile man wearing only a posing strap. Except for the very rare picture of a beach scene in LIFE, or National Geographic, I almost never saw revealing photographs of male flesh. The discovery was stunning, like suddenly being thrown into an ice-cold lake or getting an electric shock. My heart was racing. I bought an issue and snuck it into my home. I loved that little magazine, filled with photographs of teenagers and young men nearly nude or wearing only underwear or sexy accessories. I started buying as many magazines as my meager allowance permitted. These periodicals claimed to have as their purpose to inspire young bodybuilders or serve as reference material for artists. I was innocent then. And naive. I believed it. I thought I was perhaps the only one viewing these images with desire. In spite of my lustful feelings for them all, I continued to think of them as being meant to be innocent. The cute costumes may have aroused me, but I wasn't conscious of the deliberateness of what they suggested. To me these photographs intended to be playful. What gay boy, any boy, doesn't enjoy playing with costumes?

State obscenity laws, challenged nationwide in the courts for years until 1968, forbade photographs of the nude figure. Merely concealing genitalia was not sufficient; revealing even a bit of pubic hair could be identified as obscene and considered a basis for prosecution. When a model was actually photographed fully nude, the image was painted to have the appearance of a posing strap concealing the genitals before it could be published. F. Valentine Hoover III, in his book, Beefcake (Taschen, 1995), wrote: "Censorship kept the photographs so innocent and the general public so naive that mainstream sports celebrities such as two-time Olympic gold medalist Bob Mathias had no qualms about appearing in physique magazines."

Most of the physique photographers were gay men, but there were exceptions to this rule. Recently I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Delmonteque, now eighty-five years old. He was a gorgeous twenty-year-old university student when he was discovered by gay photographer, Douglas Juleff, later known as Douglas of Detroit. From 1939 to the mid-1950s, he posed countless times for Douglas and eventually learned the art of photography from him. By the early 1950s he became a professional physique photographer himself. But Delmonteque was not gay, and although he would photograph bodybuilders wearing posing straps or posing trunks to be published in physique magazines, he would also photograph his models fully nude. When I asked him about this, wondering why the models were ever fully nude, he simply answered: "It was art, that was the way it was done." By the mid-1950s he withdrew from the field as he began to realize it wasn't all as innocent as he had thought.

After 1968 the publishing world was changing with the corresponding change in what society would consider obscene. The depiction of sexual activity was becoming legal in many states. The art of the male physique photograph before 1968 lies precisely in the tension between what was evoked just under the surface — of nuanced, if not explicit, sex-and what could actually be shown. Here in this exhibit, we can see the use of flesh and photography to arouse the spectator as it spoke of a time when such images were photographed in an "aura of innocence."

I would like to express my gratitude to Reed Massengill for taking the time to help me identify many of the images I have selected for this exhibit.