A century of stimulation, this collection of 1,000 erotic photographs from 1839 to 1939 includes every risqué pose artists of each epoch could imagine. Drawn from the late Uwe Scheid’s collection, a renowned repository of suggestive imagery, these pictures in monochrome and hand-colored tints reveal as much about the development of nude photography as a genre, as about illicit fantasies, sexual mores, and social taboos.
The history of nude photography is the history of people’s fascination with the topic. Indeed, the photographic depiction of the human body is the only subject that has enthralled photographers, theoreticians, and consumers over such a long period—more than 150 years. No other motif is as prevalent as this one during all the phases of development comprising the history of photography, no other is present, whatever the technique, and is a subject of discussion within the context of nearly all aesthetic movements. Nor has any other pictorial topic produced such a variety of specialities as the nude: from the ethnological interpretation of the body to the glamour shot, from nudist photography to the pin-up of today. No other photographic field of application has inspired as much desire as it has awakened official wrath.
1000 Nudes. A History of Erotic Photography from 1839-1939
Hardcover, 14 x 19.5 cm, 0.89 kg, 576 pages
Edition: Multilingual (English, French, German)