Cars + Women + Paris = Auto-Erotica 1920s

 

Cars + Women + Paris = Auto-Erotica 1920s

Car culture as defined today owes everything to what was originally created at the turn-of-the-century and then after WWII with the birth of the American hot rodding spirit. However when it came to straight out seductive poses of women and cars, the Parisian photographers of the 1920s created the genre.

Here are a selection of what has been referred to by one publisher as "Wheels & Curves". It is no less than "beauty & the machine" and most certainly "auto-erotica" in the finest sense of the double-entendre!

All the photographs in this post are standard size (3.5" x 5.5") real photo post cards (rppc). The sepia toned photographs are unattributed and may possibly be the work of the Albert Wyndham Studio or one of the larger Paris studios: PC Paris or A.Noyer. All the black & white toned photographs are either marked with the mysterious "question mark in a triangle logo" (established as another mark used by the Ostra/Biederer Studio) or unmarked. Either way they are all the work of the two brothers operating the Ostra/Biederer Studios.

The requirements needed to qualify for the genre: a charming woman posed on, near or under an automobile with her skirt raised, giving the viewer a glimpse of her lingerie: panties, garter belt, stockings and high heels required!  The "automobile breakdown" gambit is a natural as we get a variety of views of the roadside mechanic at work, skirts conveniently raised.

I have been a car crazy, hot rod enthusiast since I was a kid and I have owned thousands of car culture magazines over the years, one of my first collections. In all the years of viewing models posed with hot rods and automobiles, nothing has came close to the marvelous, subtle eroticism presented in these 100 year old photographs.

There were also posers with no need to to get there hands dirty who nonetheless found the hoods and bumpers of their Citroens 

and Vivastellas irresistible...

...reading on the running board and relaxing behind the wheel 

and in the back seat...

Lunch time, coffee, tea? ...and dressing or undressing?

A few of these photographs For Sale in our eBay store!

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FLYING FANTASIES Surreal Postcards 1900 ~ 1930s

Most postcard and photograph collectors are familiar with "studio portraits" taken at tourist attractions and amusement parks, especially popular in the early part of the 20th century. The couple sticks their heads through an opening in a two dimensional painting of a scene at the beach or as cowboy and cowgirl and the photograph snaps a picture. They are fairly common in the United States. Europeans created similar images with a particular twist, often of groups of people in or on lighter than air forms of transportation. These were particularly popular during WW1 with soldiers.

Here from my archives, is a group of real photo postcards depicting both civilian and military versions of the theme.

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And during the period just after the turn-of-the-twentieth century printed versions of the surreal, lighter than air fantasy cards were very popular throughout Europe, especially in France and Germany. Some wonderful examples of what it might be like to fly, by use of imagination and adaptation.

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