Strange fruits
| “Harlem in the twenties was a kind of queer amusement park”
Category: {gay}
Gay
Vintage swordplay #3
Another vintage find courtesy of The Other Andrew. (Thanks, Andrew!) The tag on this photo revealed the model to be one Steve Wengryn and since I’m not an expert on these beefcake types this was news to me. A swift search also revealed that Steve was a popular model in the 1950s and posed for Bruce of LA, among others, a photographer whose work was mentioned here recently. And sure enough, this isn’t the only picture of Steve with a sword, there’s also this photo of him posing with an épée.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The men with swords archive
The recurrent pose 22
I don’t have any information as to the location of this statue (Hermosa Beach?) or the identity of the artist, unfortunately, but it’s another rare example of the Flandrin pose done as a sculpture. Unlike an earlier version by Pierre Yves Trémois, this seems copied directly from Flandrin’s painting.
Update: Note Hermosa Beach but the Cimetière d’Ixelles, Brussels.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The recurrent pose archive
Let’s get physical: Bruce of Los Angeles and Tom of Finland
Edgar Hayes (Beach) (1957).
Bruce of Los Angeles is a new exhibition of beefcake photos from the Fifties and Sixties at Wessel + O’Connor, NYC, which opens today and runs until December 20, 2008. Bruce’s name is a very familiar one to aficionados of physique photography and I imagine some of these prints will be pretty familiar too. There’s a couple of guys with swords among the selection but as a break from that particular obsession I picked out cutie Edgar Hayes instead.
Born Bruce Bellas in 1909, he was a chemistry professor from Nebraska who would wind up in Los Angeles as the top “Beefcake” photographer of the 1950’s.
He started out there in the 1940’s, shooting bodybuilding contests and met many of his models while working for Joe Weider’s muscle magazine empire, which chronicled the physical culture movement sweeping across America following WWII. Bellas photographed some of the most important figures of this era; bodybuilders Steve Reeves, Ed Fury, and George Eiferman, as well as models such as Joe Dallesandro, Mark Nixon, and Brian Idol.
Physique Pictorial cover by Tom of Finland (1961).
Meanwhile, and a bit closer to home for me, the Contemporary Urban Centre in Liverpool has been running an exhibition of drawings by Tom of Finland, another very familiar name in the world of gay art and erotica. Twenty-five works are on display there until November 30th.
• From Finland with lust | Mark Simpson looks at the artist’s legacy
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Philip Core and George Quaintance
Dallamano’s Dorian Gray
The 1970 screen adaptation of Dorian Gray by Massimo Dallamano is one film version I’ve yet to see. Given that it’s a production of notorious schlock merchants Samuel Z Arkoff and Harry Alan Towers I wouldn’t expect too much although it does have Helmut Berger as the star when he was at the height of his pulchritude. And I really like this Klimt-esque poster, a typical piece of Seventies design with an illustration that resembles many of the trendier European comic strips of the period. I’ve no idea who the artist was despite there being a scrawled signature. If anyone has a clue, please leave a comment.
Update: The artist is Ted Coconis.
• A lengthy review at Cinebeats
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Oscar Wilde archive