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Hanagan, Lon (Photographer); Massengill, Reed (Author/Curator) & Aletti, Vince (Contributor) : The Male Ideal: Lon Of New York And The Masculine Physique

Universe Books, New York City, NY, 2003

ISBN 0789309963

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 160 pages. Retrospective collection of male nudes with accompanying text. One of the finest male erotic art photography books of its kind ever published. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. An austerely elegant production by Universe: Oversize-volume format. Pictorial softcovers with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Lon of New York. Text by Reed Massengill. Foreword by Vince Aletti. Printed on archival stock paper to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Lon Hanagan's "The Male Ideal". Revives the career and achievement of Lon of New York in a definitive overview of his ground-breaking work. "Long before Bruce Weber or Herb Ritts picked up a camera, there was a photographer whose images glorified the male nude. But Alonzo Hanagan, better known as Lon of New York, was working during the 1940's and 1950's, when images of the male nude were not just illicit but illegal. Twice, his studio was raided and his negatives destroyed by police. Many of the images in this book thus exist only as prints purchased by collectors at the time. Now, for the first time in more than forty years, these photographs are published in one comprehensive collection that recovers this lost body of work. Suffused with a coy playfulness and a naive vulnerability, these erotic images of men evoke a time of greater innocence but also of greater suppression, revealing much about gay history and the history of photography. Reed Massengill, himself a photographer specializing in the male nude, became a close companion and confidante to Lon of New York and had complete access to Lon's archive and unequalled knowledge of his career" (Publisher's blurb). "With a Classicist's subtlety and a Modernist's flair, Lon led the way for a host of others, pioneering a terrain that would never have been so well travelled without his example" (Vince Aletti). An absolute "must-have" title for Lon of New York and male erotic art photography collectors. This copy is very boldly and beautifully signed in black pen on the title page by Reed Massengill. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is now a classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A rare signed copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with photographic plates. One of the finest American photographers of the male nude of the 20th century. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO DAVE MARTIN AND REED MASSENGILL TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0789309963.

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