Adding to my small but lovely collection of pictures by Frank Eugene, unfortunately I’ve been unable to find the title or year for this photograph so if any of my ever-knowledgeable readers have the missing details, please do enlighten me.
Nude Man with Harp, 1908-10. Posed and lit with such an artistic eye, Frank Eugene’s photography is truly magnificent, his male nudes depicted as glorious and graceful as his female models; indeed he is one of the first to present the male body as a thing of beauty to be admired in photographic art.
Like the George Henry Seely photograph posted last week, which was so immediately popular among my followers and their followers and so on ad infinitum, Frank Eugene’s ‘Archer’ of 1914 shares the soft focus, the addition of a prop to create a scene instead of the usual academic pose, and subtle use of nudity for aesthetic appeal rather than eroticism.