PARIS MUSIC-HALL Magazine 1930s

Paris Music-Hall magazine published in Paris, 1930s. Oversized publication dedicated to the music-hall, cabaret and Parisian nightlife and its performers, actors and dancers. Cover photographs by Walery, Julien Mandel, Laure Albin Guillot and Teddy Piaz. 

Carole Lombard cover

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PHOTO ALBUM German Snapshot Nudes 1960s

Ask any dealer or collector long on the trail for material will tell you "...finding what I've not previously seen" is what keeps them in the hunt. In the area of photographic erotica one of the things that sometimes meets the "not previously seen" criteria are albums containing original photographs, especially if they are "amateur" photos with a realistic, snapshot-like quality. 

A few years ago I found a circa mid-1960s album in Paris. Shown here, it is a mix of both professional and amateur photographs, which I believe originated in Germany. Using subjectivity (pre-conceptions of what beauty means to me), some of the women are attractive, others ordinary or even unattractive. It is the style of the photos, the composition and the ordinary "realness" of many of the posers that makes this a very interesting group of images and one of those exciting and unique finds.

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GERMAN POP CULTURE 1920s/'30s Das Magazin

Das Magazin a German publication, in its golden age in the 1920s and '30s, was a beautifully produced pop culture magazine filled with feature articles, photographs and illustrations. Leaning towards fashion, style and glamour the issues from this era are a window into what the average citizen in Weimar Germany might be reading prior to the rise of the third reich. 

Photo by the Manasse Studio, Vienna

1928 issue featuring the pin-up illustrations of American artist Enoch Boles famous for his covers of Film Fun magazine in the 1920s and '30s

The use of inventive collaging and montaging of images in photos 

evolved out of the European avant-garde

Louise Brooks, international film star

Nudes were very popular in German periodicals and seen, in retrospect, 
as  positive aspect of the glamorization of women

Summer "bathing" special issue, mermaid cover; July 1926

Body culture, nudism and naturism were recurring themes

Garbo

Photo by the American, Clarence Sinclair Bull

Seductive legs and stockings

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DER EIGENE German Gay Male Publication 1906

The first periodical dedicated to male homosexuality, Der Eigene was published from 1896 to 1932 in Berlin. Remarkable not only for the subject matter but for the longevity and philosophy of its editor and publisher Adolf Brand. Germany made same sex relations illegal with the passage of "paragraph 175" in 1871 a law that was not revoked until 1994!

The magazine included lyric poetry, prose, political manifestoes as well as reproductions of the male nude figure as represented in art, sculpture and photography. Posted here is the only example of Der Eigene I have been fortunate to own. From 1906 a bound volume with four issues including artworks and photographs by the Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden. A few more details about Brand and Der Eigene here.

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The BRIDAL NIGHT Germany 1931 Heinz Perckhammer Photos

Die Brautnacht (The Bridal Night) and Flucht aus der Ehe (Escape(?) from Marriage) a very rare, two volume set published in Germany by the Verlag fur Kulturforshung (Magnus Hirshfeld), 1931. Texts relate to the "wedding night", proper sexual intercourse for newlyweds, marriage "how-tos" as well as dealing with problems of infidelity and the urge to "escape" from married life. Touches on the problems of marriage and infidelity, prostitution, drug and alcohol addictions. Profusely illustrated with photographs, charts and artwork. 

The highlight lies at the back of the Die Brautnacht volume where "Mein Album", a group of six original photographic nudes are bound into the book in the form of a photo album. The photographs are uncredited, however details in the listings of German rare book dealers indicate that the photos were made by Heinz von Perckhammer. Perckhammer is celebrated for his very beautiful photobook, Edle Nacktheit in China, a book of Chinese female nudes, published in 1928.

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