In the colonial cradle of Puebla, Mexico Juan Crisóstomo Méndez Ávalos was born on May 12, 1885. Raised amid the city’s textile mills and fervent Catholic fervor, young Juan apprenticed at fifteen in the German import house of Soomer & … Continue reading Juan Crisóstomo Méndez Ávalos
In the post-war haze of Germany Franz Rehfeld turned his lens to the whispers of desire. Active in the 1950s and 1960s, he began as a fashion photographer, capturing the sleek lines of couture in an era of reconstruction and … Continue reading Franz Rehfeld
Born July 7, 1909, in the austere plains of Alliance, Nebraska, Bruce Bellas began as a chemistry teacher, stirring formulas by day while his imagination churned with visions of bodies in motion. By 1947, he traded the chalkboard for the … Continue reading Bruce Bellas
A Medical Treatise or Erotic Bible? Published in Paris in 1899 by Dr. Jean Martin Charcot’s circle (anonymously, under the pseudonym Docteur Jaf), Étude sur la Flagellation à travers le monde au point de vue médical, historique, religieux, domestique et … Continue reading Étude sur la Flagellation
Jacques-André Boiffard (1902–1961) is best known as Man Ray’s darkroom assistant in 1920s Paris, printing solarized nudes and surrealist masterpieces for Minotaure and Documents. Yet behind the scenes, Boiffard quietly pursued his own obsessions: fetishistic close-ups of feet, masks, and … Continue reading Jacques André Boiffard
