Framing Desire: Early Artful Erotic Photography

Wilhelm von Gloeden, Caino

Archivi Alinari, Florence, Italy

The history of early photography of naked men is closely tied to artistic traditions, social taboos, and legal restrictions, particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. While photography provided a new medium for capturing the human form, it also faced censorship and moral scrutiny. As a result, photographers often had to employ various strategies to create images that were erotic but still permissible under the law.

In the 19th century, nude male photography was often justified through its connection to classical art and academic study. Photographers used the precedent set by Greek and Roman sculpture, Renaissance paintings, and life drawing classes to frame their work as educational and artistic rather than pornographic. By emphasizing the male nude as a study of anatomy or an expression of classical beauty, they were able to produce and circulate such images under the guise of art.

F. Holland Day, Youth Leaning on a Stone, 1907

Many early photographers of nude men focused on athleticism and physical perfection, presenting their subjects as bodybuilders, wrestlers, or classical figures. This approach aligned with the growing interest in physical culture and health movements of the late 19th century. The work of photographers like Eadweard Muybridge, who captured male movement in a scientific manner, helped lend legitimacy to nude male imagery as a form of study rather than explicit erotica.

Some photographers created nude male studies specifically for artists to use as reference material. These "academic nudes" often depicted men in classical poses, mimicking sculptures like those of Michelangelo or Praxiteles. By presenting these images as educational tools, photographers could justify the nudity and avoid accusations of obscenity.

Eadweard Muybridge, Lawn Tennis, Serving, 1887

Boston Public Library 

To cater to an audience that sought erotic imagery without violating legal restrictions, photographers used subtle posing, lighting, and suggestive themes to create implied sensuality. Some of the most common techniques included partial nudity (e.g., drapery covering genitals), positioning subjects in classical, heroic, or mythological contexts, physical intimacy without overt sexuality (such as men wrestling), and soft focus and artistic blurring to create an impressionistic effect that distanced the images from explicit realism.

Some of the most significant photographers of male nudes include Wilhelm von Gloeden (1856–1931), Fred Holland Day (1864–1933), Baron Wilhelm von Plüschow (1852–1930), and Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904). Gloeden was famous for his staged photographs of young men in classical and pastoral settings in Sicily. His work was often erotic yet defended as "artistic" due to its connection to classical themes. Day was an American photographer who created religious and mythological images featuring nude men, pushing the boundaries of acceptability. Plüschow, like Gloeden, photographed young men in Mediterranean settings, using classical themes to justify nudity. While not an erotic photographer, Muybridge’s motion studies of the nude male body were widely referenced for their anatomical and artistic value.

Alonzo Hanagan, "Lon of New York" 

A Model Prepares - Johnny Kemper, c. 1965

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, obscenity laws restricted explicit nude photography, particularly if it was seen as erotic rather than educational or artistic. The Comstock Laws in the U.S. (1873) made it illegal to distribute "obscene" material, which included certain forms of nude photography. Many photographers operated discreetly, producing private or underground collections for clients who sought male erotic imagery. In the 1930s, George Platt Lynes, an American fashion and commercial photographer, began taking nudes of friends, performers, and models, including a young Yul Brynner, although these remained private, unknown, and unpublished for years. The difference between "art" and "pornography" was often subjective, leaving photographers to defend their work based on artistic merit.

By the 1940s and 1950s, physique photography became a major outlet for male nudity. Photographers such as George Quaintance, Lon Hanagan (Lon of New York), and Bob Mizer (Athletic Model Guild) used images of muscular men in skimpy posing trunks or classical warrior outfits to suggest nudity without breaking obscenity laws. These images were marketed as "health and fitness" material but were clearly aimed at a gay audience.

Bob Mizer, Naked Young Man

The photographs taken survive in various archives. Lynes’s photographs featuring gay artists and writers from the 1940s that were acquired by the Kinsey Institute. Most of Gloeden’s surviving pictures (negatives and prints) are now in the Fratelli Alinari photographic archive in Florence and further prints are in private collections or held by public institutions such as the Civico Archivo Fotographico in Milan. Examples of Mizer's work are now held by esteemed educational and cultural institutions the world over, and can be found in various books, galleries, and private art collections.

The early history of male nude photography is a story of balancing art, censorship, and hidden desire. Photographers used classical references, athleticism, and coded eroticism to create images that were both sensual and legally defensible. While these early images were often constrained by societal norms, they laid the groundwork for more openly homoerotic and artistic expressions in later decades.

Alexander Jensen Yow Nude Sitting

George Platt Lynes, c. 1950