Dear Constant Reader,
This book is only tangentially related to burlesque — in a couple of ways you might expect and one you probably don’t. Michelle L’amour told me about this book, probably not long after it came out, and I’m grateful.
Peep Show Pinups: The Golden Era by Jo and Paul Richardson, 2009.
The book is primarily a survey of erotic photographs from the mid-19th century to about the 1920s. There are less than two dozen pages of the history of photography, with many photos included and some brief commentary before each section. The rest of the pages are photos of women in varying states of undress. The layout is quite aesthetically pleasing, designed to look like an old-fashioned photo album.
The photos are loosely organized by categories. It begins with Daguerreotypes and the Early Years, which is only a few pages of mid-19th century images, showing that as long as there have been photographs, there have been nudes.
The second section, Women Posed, looks at “many of the varied styles and themes during the first century of the genre”. It’s pictures of women, mostly individual, mostly nude, posing for the camera. Other than their lack of clothing, they are not particularly provocative. In contrast, the third section, Fun and Games, has more sexually explicit photos. Many portray couples (and more) disporting themselves or women in BDSM situations. There’s a fair bit of girls spanking other girls, as you might imagine, but also a bit of harder stuff.
The next section, Postcards, contains exactly that — and at least one arcade card (want to know what that is? I wrote a bit about it for my Patrons). I was terribly amused to see that several of the postcards had canceled stamps on the picture. I’m so very curious as to what was written on the back and why the stamps were on the front of the card.
Manipulating the Image is photos that have been colored or were stereo cards, which appeared 3-D with the correct viewer. Some of the colored images, which would have been done by hand, are delicate and subtle. I rather like one of a woman smoking where just her garters were picked out in red. Other photos are extremely garish. The authors mourn that one can’t experience the stereo effect of those cards on the printed page, but fortunately we have an OWL stereoscopic viewer, which is meant to work with such images. It works perfectly well (I just tested it)!
This is followed by Out of Doors and Overseas, photos taken in nature and then ethnographic pictures. These are women from foreign countries in their local attire, some clearly posing in a studio, partially clad in “exotic” dress, others seem to be snapshots of women who normally went topless in their culture. And the very last section is A Final Glance. In the 1930s erotic photography changed styles, ending this “golden era”. I’m unclear if the five photos in this section are supposed to be the last of their kind or a taste of the new.
If you like looking at vintage erotic photos, this is a fine collection, but don’t expect to learn much about any of the photos. The introduction does have some of the models and photographers identified for the photos there, but the rest of the book is just pictures. There’s also no information about where the authors acquired their collection (you’ll see in a moment why I’m interested)
As for burlesque, in the introduction there is some mention of arcade cards, Mutoscope reels, and performers like Josephine Baker and members of the Ziegfeld Follies posing.
And then there’s this (lightly censored for public viewing).
Yes, that’s me. On page 40 in the Women Posed section.
In 2005 I worked with a photographer named Michael Berkowitz who created erotic photos in the style of the late 19th century. He shot on elaborate sets with an antique camera. I remember it was a lot of fun, but very precise, because the total number of photos for a session was so limited. There’s another of his photos on page 153, among the “exotic foreigner” images. Apparently the authors found a couple of his prints somewhere and couldn’t tell that they weren’t actually “golden era” photos. I mean, mission accomplished, but… yikes!
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Oh, The Glamourous Life! 