1000 nudes. History of Erotic Photography 1839-1939 TASCHEN Books

A glimpse through the keyhole of history

From the first nude daguerreotypes to experimental nude photography

The history of nude photography is the history of people's fascination with the subject. In effect, the photographic representation of the human body is the only subject that has captivated photographers, theorists and consumers for such a long time - over 150 years. No other motif is as prevalent as this during all the developmental phases of the history of photography, no other is present, whatever the technique, and is the subject of discussion within the framework of almost all aesthetic movements. Nor has any other pictorial subject produced such a variety of specialties as the nude: from the ethnological interpretation of the body to the glamorous cliché, from nudist photography to today's pin-up. No other field of photographic application has aroused as much desire as it has aroused official anger.

1000 nudes offers cross section of the history of nude photography, ranging from early nude daguerreotypes and ethnographic nude photographs to experimental nude photography. The time span spanned by this work is from approximately 1839 to 1939, from the childhood of the medium to the end of the Classical Modernist period. Content-wise, the book pays homage to the full range of painterly approaches, from hand-crafted turn-of-the-century artistic nudes shrouded in layers of theory, to "obscene" postcard motifs that had no pretense whatsoever. artistic and were intended to have maximum effect on the buyer's wallet.

All photos shown are taken from the end Uwe Scheid's collection, one of the largest and most important erotic photography collections in the world.