Dubbed “the world’s prettiest photographer” in 1953, former pin-up model Bunny Yeager decided to step behind the camera, and in the process, became a pioneer in the almost exclusively male world of cheesecake photography, as well as one of the best. She’s known mostly for her exceptional work with Bettie Page, but all of Bunny’s pictures have the same sense of relaxed glamor and intimacy that’s uniquely hers, and she had an great eye for “talent.” A few of the ‘60s shots are a bit scary though, mainly because of the squalid nature of the clothes, hair and makeup (think how Jayne Mansfield looked around that time… ‘nuff said). MG

Publisher: Taschen
Paperback: 160 pages
Illustrated

Will the art-history textbooks of the year 2525 focus on George Petty and Haddon Sundblom as the true exemplars of 20th-century American painting rather than Jasper Johns or Ed Ruscha? The authors of The Great American Pin-Up clearly think so, and make no secret of the historical significance of this staggering pageant of painterly pulchritude reproduced lovingly in living color and often taken from the original oil paintings of the masters themselves.
This survey begins with the exotic “moonlight girls” of the art deco era and follows pin-up art from the celebrated Peruvian da Vinci of the American Girl, Alberto Vargas, to the salacious pulp covers for Eyeful, Giggles, Titter, and Flirt. Most prominent are the hot-to-trot all-American gals-next-door specialized in by the Brown and Bigelow calendar company of St. Paul, Minnesota. Esquire magazine’s crucial role in disseminating the art of the pin-up through its “Gallery of Glamour” in each issue is recognized here as well.
Besides being the first to compile and reproduce such a plethora of fascinating female figures, this collection emphasizes the personalities behind the pin-ups: Art Frahm and his acclaimed “panties falling down series”; such woman pin-up painters as the glamorous Zoë Mozert (who often modeled for herself by posing in front of a mirror) and Chicago’s sister pin-up team Laurette and Irene Patten; Gil Elvgren and his hugely popular “situation pictures” (over a billion have been reproduced) in which a gusty wind or a mischievous BBQ grill leads to a provocative display of thigh and garter; Fritz Willis, originator of Brown and Bigelow’s Artist Sketch Pad series with sketched-in elements surrounding the vibrantly painted model; and the many other artistic spirits behind the 900 racy images collected herein. SS

Publisher: Taschen
Hardback: 380 pages
Illustrated

Working in the second half of the 16th century, Bruegel was naturally acquainted with the work of his countryman Hieronymus Bosch, who died several years before Bruegel was born. And he followed Bosch’s lead in depicting diabolical demons and phantasmic, apocalyptic visions. But this book demonstrates that in addition to being a mysterious and satirical social commentator, Bruegel was, perhaps more interestingly, a philosopher. His biblical or mythological paintings emphasized an extreme naturalism integrating contemporary detail and sensibility into universal themes. And he was an empirical scientist interested in up-to-date scientific achievements as well as in expressing advanced knowledge of perspective and techniques of depiction. With simplicity, the authors describe the times in which the work was produced, and give voice to its relevance. JTW

Publisher: Taschen
Paperback: 96 pages
Illustrated

“I want to grasp things with the mind, the way the penis is grasped by the vagina.” Duchamp channeled the hot air of dada into the lungs of surrealism. Originator of the ready-made as art object, Duchamp experimented with the effects of motion on perception, created art in response to science and technology and generally got busy, messing with the artists and critics of his day. Surrounding himself with suggestions of androgyny and a wall of silence, he presented art historians, critics and patrons with an IQ test, poetry, word play and an element of humor. The book is large, glossy and includes chronology, notes and many fine plates. Provocative, aggravating, confusing, but too strange to be meaningless. CF

Publisher: Taschen
Paperback: 94 pages
Illustrated

The art of German apocalyptic painter George Grosz. Grosz was a young soldier during World War I but was kicked out without ever having been to the front. After the Russian Revolution he joined the artist’s association November Group, which formed in Berlin in 1918, and co-founded the German faction of the Dada movement. Grosz was a biting political satirist, and his most poignant works, produced throughout the ‘20s, skillfully presented acerbic commentaries on the decadent elite and the ravaging political war machine. Grosz’s cartoons, paintings and drawings (this book includes over 70 illustrations, half of those in full color) demonstrates that scenes from the aftermath of World War I—poverty, corruption, filth and debauchery—are just as likely to be scenes from today. MDH

Publisher: Taschen
Paperback: 96 pages
Illustrated

A well-rounded look at the art and life of this Mexican icon in a large-format book. Frida Kahlo, creator of some of the most intense oil paintings ever made, portrays personal pain and self-reflection with the hand of an ancient goddess. The text provides a fairly complete description of her vigorous life as a political freedom fighter, her tumultuous marriage to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, and her daily battle with her damaged and debilitating body. Includes many images and a chronology that sums up important meetings and affairs at a glance. MDH

Publisher: Taschen
Paperback: 96 pages
Illustrated

This work on Klimt is part of the German publisher Taschen’s series on famous artists. Like other works in the series, it economically (in 96 pages) traces the artist’s career while sumptuously illustrating in color his major works. Neret presents extended sections on Klimt’s best-known decorative-art projects: the Beethoven Frieze created for an exhibition in 1902, and the mosaics for Josef Hoffmann’s Palais Stoclet, in Brussels. The remainder of the book focuses on what Klimt is popularly known for, his erotic presentation of the female body, in sections such as “Secessionist Symbolism and Femmes Fatales” and “All Art Is Erotic.” This work also features a useful chronology of Klimt’s life and work
. AP

Publisher: Taschen
Paperback: 96 pages
Illustrated

A concise overview of the French protomodernist’s career, containing brilliant reproductions of many of his major efforts, plus a text which achieves (inadvertently or not) just the right tone of elitist obscurantism to carry off the relentless myth-making that was so integral to his oeuvre. “Klein never learned the trade of painting; he was born to it,” enthuses author Hannah Weitemeier, paving the way for Klein’s own claim to having “absorbed the taste of painting with my mother’s milk.” Perhaps there wasn’t all that much to learn, seeing as how the paintings in question were mostly one color, mostly blue—a particular hue Klein went on to patent as “International Klein Blue.” This same blue was also applied to sculptural objects as well as naked women whom he employed as living stamps in the production of his “Anthropometries” series. Elaborately ritualized, with a full orchestra and a tuxedo-clad Klein as MC, the process was documented in the film Mondo Cane, and thereby doomed to go down in history as an emblem of avant excess. Here it is, then, “a life like a continuous note,” which Klein meant literally of course, composing the famous paean to himself The Monotone Symphony-Silence, and having it performed at openings, at his wedding and finally at his funeral. JT

Publisher: Taschen
Paperback: 96 pages
Illustrated

This hardbound installment in Taschen’s continuing series of fetish-oriented photographic offerings encyclopedically catalogues the work of Elmer Batters, certainly one of the most fanatically focused lensmen ever to shoot in the pin-up genre. Batters, whose work began in the 1940s and continued for some 40 years, was and is, as fellow photographer Eric Kroll (who edited this collection) describes him in the book’s introduction, “a regular guy with an obsession,” that being the legs and feet of women. Though he photographs their other parts as well—often with stark explicitness—legs and feet, most often clad in seamed, Cuban-heeled stockings, are generally in the foreground.
Technically competent, Batters’ images derive their power not so much from technique, or even subject matter, but rather from their artlessly frank juxtapositions of fetish imagery with more conventional expressions of sexuality. Unlike less ingenuous artists in the medium, who show the viewer a high heel as a way of suggesting something that is not shown, Batters poses his models with stockinged legs folded in against exposed genitalia, making the connection as direct as possible. It doesn’t require a decoder ring to figure out this work. This man is a born-again shrimper.
Indeed, the quotidian surroundings, the unadorned staging, the plain-to-routine-pretty models reflect a seeming unawareness of any audience outside the maker of the image. At their worst, Batters’ pictures might have come straight from Beaver Hunt. At their best, however, they have a stripped-down, telegraphic intensity, compressing all the libidinous fury of the photographer’s obsession in a single, power-packed frame. The lasting impression left by this exhaustive compilation is of an erotic artist more honest than slick, whose work succeeds by staying close to home. IL

Publisher: Taschen
Hardback: 215 pages
Illustrated

“Kern is the punk of bondage photographers. His hardcore photographs of New York girls are created by a practiced Peeping Tom. They show girlie sex, splatter scenes, girls with guns (bang-bang), girls trussed up like chickens, manacled, tattooed and pierced; but above all they show girls looking back at the camera in a way that makes us wonder who is in control. These challenging, beautiful and mysterious photographs grew out of Kern’s performance and film work… his photographs document the dark side of the American dream where narcissistic fantasies, aggressive phobias and powerful desires come under the transgressive scrutiny of Kern’s eye.”

Publisher: Taschen
Paperback: 260 pages
Illustrated