Cover featuring,
Wilhelm Von Gloeden,
Le Faune, late 1900
Albumin print
15" x 11"

Vincenzo Galdi
Nu Provoquant, late 19th C
Albumin print
9" x 6.5"

Guglielmo Von Pluschow
Jeune homme denude au vase, late 19th C
Albumin print
6.5" x 5"

Strangers in Paradise

By Douglas Blair Turnbaugh

Here is another fabulous book of photographs from Mme. Canet, on the subject of her recent exhibition “Photographies fin XIXe,” held in her gallery, 21 September through 29 October 2005. (See Archive No. 16 for more details about her other publication.)

Charles Leslie’s pioneering book on Baron Wilhelm Von Gloeden (1856-1931), [Wilhelm Von Gloeden Photographer, 1977, Soho Photographic Press, Inc.], started a revival of interest which has established the Baron as one of the great photo-graphers of his time, and which also has given him, a handsome German aristocrat, an almost mythical position in the fabulous period (late 19th–early 20th century) when Italy and North Africa, Capri and Sicily were a gay paradise. His studio in Taormina was visited by kings, princes, captains of industry, artists and literary figures, as well as any boy lover who could afford the trip. He often posed his nude or toga-draped models in tableaux suggesting his ideas of life in ancient Greece. They are technically chaste, desire being in the eye of the beholder, and therefore did not cause offense. Indeed, these photographs of boys with big feet and thick penises won medals in international exhibitions, and were purchased by museums and other institutions, for example, the National Geographic Society, which is supposed to have many of his pictures in its archive. His blissful life story took a tragic turn in the early 1930s, when Fascists condemned his work and smashed most of his glass negatives. Of course many of his prints on sepia albumin paper survive, and their prices continue to rise.

Guglielmo Von Plüschow (1852-1930) had settled in Rome a few years before the arrival from Germany of Von Gloeden, his cousin, and it was he who encouraged the Baron to take up photography. Von Pluschow’s photos are more erotic than Von Gloeden’s; they avoid the pretext of being “classical.” They are seductive nudes. But they also were socially acceptable in their time as ethnological records. Circa 1897, Von Plüschow went to Egypt and Greece, where he took beautiful photographs of archeological sites, sometimes with naked young men among the Greek statues or in the ruins of Pompeii. In Nubia, he took sensual ethnographic pictures of boys and women, now very difficult to find.

Vincenzo Galdi (1856-1931), who lived at one time in Rome, took pictures of nude men and women, somewhat in the style of Von Gloeden and Von Pløoschow, but in more minimal, and therefore less expensive, settings. He made no pretense of photographing a “scene,” but emphasized a sexuality, which is much more provocative than in his rivals’ work. Perhaps this is why he is the least known of the trio. One wonders if Galdi, or indeed any of them, ever dared to photograph his models in heat.

Not unusally, collectors at the time mounted these fragile photographs on cardboard, often without notation; and over time many of them were attributed to Von Gloeden, the most famous and therefore the most expensive of the three. However, as these have more and more often been unstuck from their boards, the stamps on the back reveal which man was
the photographer.

This lovely book has fifty-five photographs, many of which I have never seen before. It is a wonderful opportunity to compare the work of the three artists, to see their common interest—which is probably our own—and to recognize their unique approaches to the delicate and varied mysteries of desire. Mme. Canet’s book helps us to penetrate this forever enchanting, forever-lost world.

Gloedeneries Caravagesques: Von Gloeden - Von Pluchow - Vincenzo Galdi
Published by Nicole Canet, Galerie Au Bonheur du Jour, 11, rue Chabanais, 75002, Paris
Limited edition of 500 copies, 25 Euros each.
Telephone: 33 1 42 96 58 64
http://www.curiositel.com/aubonheurdujour