Flashback Friday…. time for Queer Artists from the not-so-distant past!
Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden
above - self portraits
“photographer Wilhelm Von Gloeden … , from 1890-1914, became the pioneering force in bringing nude homoerotic photography to the eyes of an accepting public.
Born in 1856 at Volkshagen Castle in Wismar to a socially prominent family, Von Gloeden’s early interest as a student of art history changed dramatically when a developing lung condition took him to recuperate at the Sicilian town of Taorina, which at the time was at its height of international popularity as the center of sophisticated society.
An exhibit of his work at the Royal Photographic Society and “Linked Rings,” the London Society of Art Photography was to bring Von Gloeden to the attention of the Archduke Frederick lll of Meckenburg-Schwerin who presented him with a large formal plate camera. His earlier shared interest in nude photography with the Naples photographer Wilhelm von Pluschow was to result in his most productive body of work in which he sought to convey his vision of a golden age before the dawn of civilization. Through the eye of his camera, Von Gloeden captured the essence of innocence through “tableaux vivants,” specially designed set pieces featuring nude portraits of young men.
Von Gloeden stopped taking photos in 1930, the year he died at age 74. In 1933, a thousand glass plates were confiscated and destroyed by Fascist police. The remaining collection of 800 plates and 200 albumin prints, which were in the care of Von Gloeden’s assistant Pancracio Bucini, remain in the archives of Lucio Amelio in Naples.” - gsfla
