About this Item
1st Printing. 112 pages. Published in 2000. Retrospective collection of male nudes. One of the most beautiful books on the photographic art and achievement of Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden and his gilded successors. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a hardcover original only. An Import title, none of the copies was commercially distributed in the United States. The First Edition is now rare. An exquisite production by Edition Oehrli: Oversize-volume format. Brown cloth boards with photographic reproduction pasted on the cover and white titles embossed on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Wilhelm von Gloeden, Guglielmo Pluschow, and Vincenzo Galdi. Text by Peter Weiermair and Tobias G. Natter. Printed on thick, uncoated stock paper in Zurich, Switzerland to the highest standards. The reproduction quality is outstanding in every respect. Without DJ, as issued. Presents "Et In Arcadia Ego: Wilhelm von Gloeden Guglielmo Pluschow Vincenzo Galdi: Turn of The Century Photography". Ground-breaking male nudes taken between 1895 and 1903, the recently re-discovered treasure trove of photographs by the trio, which appear in this volume for the very first time. "I too am in Paradise": Von Gloeden's - and his immediate successors' - work is fixed in the cult imagination as an evocation of Arcadia: Naked men, ancient ruins, and majestic landscapes. Roland Barthes memorably describes his work as a "carnival of contradictions", and therein lies its enduring fascination. Von Gloeden combined Greek landscape, Roman statuary, and Beaux Arts painting, resulting in a subversive pastiche art that broke with both the Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian representations of the male nude, and is singularly his own. Barthes found himself drawn to an intuitively innovative artist precisely because unlike the Marquis de Sade and formalists like the Surrealists, von Gloeden's blend of Naturalism and Classicism was ahead of its time without being self-consciously so, "without his having to think about it". His influence has been enduring: After Guglielmo Pluschow and Vincenzo Galdi came Herbert List, Robert Mapplethorpe, Joel-Peter Witkin, Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber, Nino Longobardi, and Marlene Dumas. Jonathan Turner rounds out a century of continuing influence to an incredibly diverse constellation of artists: Joseph Beuys, Wolfgang Tillmans, Michael Buthe, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Pierre et Gilles, and John Dugdale. They, too, covet Paradise. An absolute "must-have" title for Wilhelm von Gloeden collectors. This title is a great erotic art photography book. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: An Import title, none of the copies was commercially distributed in the United States. Copies available online command more than $800. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with sepia-toned plates. Three of the greatest photographers of the male nude. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER VON GLOEDEN TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 3905597209.
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