This is an antique & original c. late
1920s – 1930 complete, unpaginated edition of Artists' Models
Notebook magazine (Volume 1, Number 1). This spicy pulp-era publication
from the hedonistic roaring twenties features art photos – all by the
talented and prolific photographer Edwin Bower Hesser.
This publication
was ostensibly for "commercial artists and art students" however, these
types of magazines were the precursors to the nudie girlie magazines of
the following decades.This magazine features page after page of
eye-catching pictorialist photography by Hesser including artistic and
avant-garde poses from bronzed and gilded beauties, dreamy outdoor
woodland nymph images of a blonde Jean Harlow look-a-like model, and
snappy Jazz Age studio portraits of bubbly models frolicking with
balloons.
This antique magazine is certainly a page turner! Hesser, a
talented and sought after theatre and Hollywood portraitist, was no
stranger to these types of periodicals. According to David S. Shields,
McClintock Professor, University of South Carolina, Hesser "realized
that the real money in photography lay in periodical publication, not in
the service of film publicity offices or stage PR men. He saw
particular opportunity in the subject which the 1920s stage explored
with great daring, but the screen, even in pre-code days, could not
pursue: female undress. Throughout the late 1920s, he published Edwin
Bower Hesser's Arts Monthly, and other titles, exploiting the
association betweens art and nudity, and sold it to an anonymous
readership of 'art students.
'"Measures 5 1/4" x 7 1/2" – complete and
unpaginated.
CONDITION: This antique magazine is in very good condition.
It does show some wear, but given its age it is a remarkable piece of
ephemera! There is a tear on the front cover, scattered edge wear, and general storage/handling
wear.