The 1000 Model Directory is an eyeball-boggling book. Or books. It's a two-volume boxed set from Taschen, weighing in at 10 pounds, with a staggering 1,000 pages of lustrously printed reproductions of Bob Mizer's classic physique photographs. Over 2,000 of them. Even the set's price is impressive, at $100. Yup, a hundred bucks, although you can find it cheaper if you poke around the internet. But that's only 10 cents per page. Each and every masculinity-packed page a bargain.
Bob Mizer pioneered the gay-angled physique photo when he founded AMG, the Athletic Model Guild, in 1945. Over two decades he photographed, like, eleventy zillion models, and sold the photos through a monthly catalogue called The Physique Pictorial (Taschen reproduced every one of them in a three-volume set in 1997). To fit all the model photos into his hip-pocket catalogue, Mizer reduced them to postage-stamp size. The reproduction wasn't at all sharp, the careful lighting coarsened. Who knew there was art hidden within them? Dian Hanson, the editor of the new Taschen set, has released the men from those miniaturized photos into full-sized portraits, presenting Mizer's handsome hunks in striking clarity in prints made from his original 4x5 negatives.
Mizer's a guy whose place in the pantheon has already been firmly fixed, although perhaps not entirely appropriately. Taschen's first major Bob Mizer collection, Bob's World, published in 2002, was generous and informative, but purposefully undertook to deliver the campy set-ups, declasse models and sexually lurid poses of Bob's later work. I'm left fairly unmoved by that endless parade of gaping assholes (they weren't particularly to Mizer's taste, either, but he thought his fans wanted them). "Lurid" was indeed the exact word that editor Hanson once used to describe the book. The 1000 Model Directory is an atonement of sorts, and should correct perceptions. On nearly every page it makes clear that Mizer was, indeed, a Master of his art.
Here, finally, is a Mizer collection that leans only a little toward camp or sexual provocation. There's hardly an aggrandized basket or bulge shot among them, and diaphanous posing straps creep in only toward the end. Indeed, the book smartly ends in 1966, just as nudity became allowable and the alluring posing strap fell into oblivion.
Not that the photos even at their most artistic do not convey an eroticism that was massive in its day, and is still effective. Unlike the rigidly posed, straight-faced depictions in the bodybuilding magazines of the 1930s and 40s, Bob's models held hands. They looked at each other, they touched, with a previously unknown happiness, and even longing. They gazed directly at the viewer, invited him in. Mizer's revolution in physique photography was to add sexuality. It was understated, for sure. But unmistakable.
The less restrictive standards of Mizer's day let him engage younger models, and the new book includes many guys who are 15 and 16 years old. Arnie Payne was 14 when he was photographed. There are also brothers, and twins, many of them rather racily intertwined.
Like most Taschen books, this one offers only sketchy documentation. Its index is particularly woebegone. It's unacquainted with alphabetical order, difficult to navigate, and is disappointingly incomplete. Out of a thousand potentialities, its thumbnail model biographies offer a mere 139. The chance that was missed in making this volume complete in both photo and documentation is painful. I noticed only one error. Hanson writes that model Bud Counts never did frontal nudes. But I've got them, yes, plural, downloaded right off the Net. It's a small error, but alerts one to the possibilities of more.
On the other hand, Hanson's research can be appreciated. She tells us which of the models became bodybuilding title-holders, which of the robust boys appeared in which Hollywood movies, which one became Mae West's consort of several decades, which one was the inspiration for a David Hockney painting, and what professions others entered, whom they married, and when they died.
The 1000 Model Directory is a limited edition, of only 7,500 numbered copies. Perhaps you'll get yours at the book's launch party on Nov. 3, at The Magazine, the cherished store at 920 Larkin St. that caters to media freaks. You'll also meet the book's editor, Dian Hanson, and Bob Mizer Foundation founder and president Dennis Bell. And, you'll be able to honor Bob Mainardi and Trent Dunphy, who have owned and run The Magazine for 43 years. Looking forward to their future legacy, they have donated not only the building, but also their extensive photo collection, to the Mizer Foundation.
It's a major gift. For the moment, the building is sort of two-faced. But as the store's merchandise is sold off, it will slowly morph away from The Magazine to become solely the Foundation. Bell envisions an exhibition area and gift shop on the first floor, and a research area on the second. Down below, there's a vast basement that will no doubt house the negatives and prints of the BMF.
The event begins at 6 p.m. Bell will make a special announcement at 6:45 p.m. It's free, and there's no need to RSVP. Just show up. The first 50 people who purchase the 1000 Model Directory will get a copy of the original 1957 1000 Model Catalogue.