archive@badpuppy.com
2/8/99: Dave has been without sight in
one eye for some time & was almost certain to lose sight in the
other, a photographer's greatest nightmare. He had undergone 4 operations.
It is with great joy that we announce that his 5th operation was a total success. He awoke
the day after the operation with full sight in his good eye.
Thank you God for saving the sight of a National Treasure!!
The following article was written by DAVE MARTIN , one of the photographers of legend from that wondrous time called "Physique" & an amazing historian of that period. He's lived though horrific persecution, as they all did, by the police, church & state to tell the story. He's also lived to see his work finally recognized as great art (& many police & law enforcement personal finally being prosecuted as criminals.) The article was written for his just released book. The editor had to edit it down due to space. Dave very kindly has given The ARCHIVE permission to not only use his images in the tribute to him, but to also publish the article unedited. Dave has also agreed to help The ARCHIVE with more articles which will become tributes to photographers, like The Ritter Brothers & John M. Hernic, who we owe so much to. They created male physique photographic images in the 1920s, 1930s & 1940s and had true courage! This article will flow into the tribute to Dave with, as always, full frontal images behind the firewall to prevent access by minors. © 1996 Dave Martin all rights reserved. This article may not be re-published or used in any way, shape or form in any manner or media without the written permission of Dave Martin.
Among the earliest to popularize this new subject matter in photography were the Ritter Brothers of New York in the 1930s. These two handsome young men, who possessed exceptionally beautiful classic body lines, posed together naked in various athletic activities at a New York City YMCA and in sylvan outdoor settings. They took their own pictures, did their own darkroom work, and sold their pictures by mail as a means of earning a living during the Depression years. (when a high quality 8x10 print cost $1.00.) As exponents of the new "physical culture" lifestyle being then promoted by publishing magnate Bernarr MacFadden and by their famous trainer Sig Klein, and others, Fred and William Ritter displayed an obvious pride and pleasure in their posing work as well as a keen artistic ability. Today, their original photographs are highly prized collector items. In 1930-1935 their studio address was at 14 West 40th Street, in a small office building, directly across the street from the New York Public Library. Another New York cameraman working in the 1930s and 40s was Edwin F. Townsend, at 25 West 48th Street, an old brownstone which he used as a studio. He was a commercial and theatrical photographer whose male nudes of actors and athletes (most notably the great Tony Sansone) achieved wide acclaim. These very photos inspired a young man named Alonzo Hannagan to move to New York in the late '30s where he pursued his goal of creating images as beautiful and exciting as those of Sansone. By the mid 1940s "Lon of New York" was the top name in the physique field, supplying a steady flow of exquisite physique studies to the national bodybuilding magazines, and offering unretouched photos by mail order. Other important artists in the burgeoning East Coast group working out of New York were: Earl Forbes, Paul Gebbé (Robert Gebhart) and George Platt Lynes. In the Central U.S., Al Urban, Jr.
was making a name for himself in Chicago. He had originally started out in New York City
then later moved. He billed himself
The late 1940s and
early 1950s brought a proliferation of new studios offering male model
studies. These included Ralph Kelly, Lyle, Frisby,
Art Bob and Pat Milo, all in Southern California, and Dave Martin and Russ
Warner in the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California. Warner's early
artistic male nudes led to the work for which he became famous; physique contest action
shots and publicity photos of professional bodybuilders published mainly in the
"muscle magazines" of Joseph Weider which eventually popularized this art and
sport for a mass audience. In Seattle, Jon C. Arnt who had begun his
photographic career working for Boeing Aircraft during World War II and later established
a commercial portrait studio, began to concentrate on physique photography. In the East, But the 1050s was a period of
changing social values and repressive political and legal actions. It became known as the
Throughout this almost 20-year
period a war was being fought between conservative (right
& ultra-right wing) and liberal trends, and
arrests and prosecutions continued. It wasn't until the late 1960s that this era of
censorship was finally ended and reform took place. The U.S. Government tried and
convicted a Washington, D.C. publisher, Dr. Lynn Womack, for selling
"obscene matter" (i.e. male frontal nudes.) Dr. Womack
published Grecian Guild Pictorial and other male magazines featuring
complete nudes. But in Dr. Womack the authorities had picked a formidable
adversary, and he was jailed. From his confinement he fought with a fury and spent a
fortune directing his attorneys in an appeal that eventually led all the way to the United
States Supreme Court. After consenting to hear the case, the Supreme Court overturned all
previous denials of the Womack appeals and ruled in his favor. The 1968 Womack
decision became a landmark case, limiting the censorship of free expression and
ruling that mere nudity was not obscene. Womack's favorable verdict actually gave every
photographer in the country a Bill of Rights for freedom of expression under the First
Amendment which previously never existed. This had far-reaching effects on the entire
country and brought about a new freedom in pictorial representation in all areas. While there are many people, even today, who would argue that this Pandora's Box should never have been opened, there would be few artists among them. Those who appreciate the male nude as a thing of natural beauty and invigorating inspiration will realize that the right to portray and esteem this most fundamental image should not be taken for granted. Constitutional protections are not always self-evident and are under constant threat of erosion and amendment. Artists and individuals like those who suffered and fought for the freedom of expression enjoyed today must be ever vigilant! Dave Martin San Francisco July 1996 |
By the late 1940s
there were only a handful of studio photographers in the United States who
specialized in Camera studies of the male nude. This genre of "physique
photography" having sprung from such roots as academic artistic studies, celebrity
portraits of sports and stage stars, and pioneering work like Eadward Muybridge's
startling studies of human locomotion (featuring himself, and many other models, in the
nude), blossomed into the unabashed portrayal of the naked male body for its sheer beauty.
Another giant in this field was one of the foremost American painters of the 19th century,
Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) who made hundreds of photographs of the male
and female nude in the late 1890s, to prepare for his paintings and
sculpture projects. This was a new art form, and some of the daring artists who worked in
it became pathfinders, leaders and masters of the medium.
as "America's leading Physique Photographer." In nearby
Detroit, Douglas Juleff was creating outstanding work. His formal art
training was evident in his brilliant lighting technique and composition. He worked in
photo studios as a commercial retouching artist and even retouched his male nudes,
enhancing then even further. No other photographer did this. These dramatic studies by "Douglas
of Detroit" were often featured in Bob Hoffman's STRENGTH AND HEALTH,
a leading bodybuilding magazine of the period.
Also by the mid 1940s a few fledgling
photo studios were establishing a West Coast group based in Los Angeles. Here the pioneer
was 
Don Young and Dick Lee
established Eastern Model Associates, but soon went their seperate ways. Frank
Collier, Rod Crowther, John Palatinus, Anthony
Guyther (Guyther, Vulcan, Discus & Capital) and Spectrum Films
of Cincinnati all 
appeared
in the 1950s, as well as one of the most successful new studios, and virtually the only
one operating between Chicago and Los Angeles: Don Whitman's Western Photography
Guild in Denver, Colorado. Whitman brought a clean and classic look to his
athletic young models posed alone and in dramatic duals against the natural splendor of
the Rocky Mountains.
McCarthy Era
(for the ultra-rightwing
senator who terrorized the nation in a homophobic &
supposed anti-communist witch hunt, with his partner in crime the homosexual Roy Cohen.)
(for the ultra-rightwing senator who terrorized the nation in a
homophobic & supposed anti-communist witch hunt, with his partner in crime the
homosexual Roy Cohen.) While publications had
always required physique photography to artfully retouch nudes, or have the models wear
quite minimal "posing straps," increasingly photographers were hounded and
harassed for even offering to sell frontal nudes privately. The 
extroverted and
individualistic war years had given way to an era of conservative (pronounced right-wing) conformity, and the combined actions of local, federal and postal
authorities led to the investigation and persecution of many photographers whose works
(which featured nudity but were not overtly erotic, and certainly were not pornographic)
were deemed objectionable. Those artists who defied the laws and the climate, continuing
to offer uncensored nudes, did so at great risk. Some photographers were arrested, their
prints and negatives seized (and often destroyed), and their lives and livelihoods
disrupted by witch hunt trials, many in Federal courts (all
in clear violation of the Constitution & resembling something out of a Nazi courtroom)
which in some cases led too severe fines and
even imprisonment. Such was the puritanical atmosphere at the time that juries ruled the
mere depiction of genitalia to be pornographic. Many careers were ruined, and many classic
images (both prints and negatives) were irretrievably lost.
None the less, physique photography continued as a viable genre
throughout the 1950s and '60s, which were in Fact the
heyday of the "little magazines," a field which 
These changes in style and taste, coupled
with repressive legal threats, silenced some of the field's veteran artists, while others
were discouraged by the increasing emphasis (despite the ban on nudity) on overt
eroticism, as well as what may have seemed an apparent indifference to the artistic
quality of the work being published.