The Male Nude

David Leddick's writing ranges from exhibit catalogs to novels and takes the male figure--in art and in society--as its central theme. His nonfiction work includes Male Nude and Naked Men: Pioneering Male Nudes. Naked Men has been described as "an erotically charged spectacle of photographs taken by George Platt Lynes and the PAJAMA group from the show more thirties, forties and fifties." As a work of artistic history, it introduces some of the first nude male photographic models in America. In Male Nude, Leddick writes that "for some people, nakedness signifies liberation, a joyful and un-neurotic sexuality; for others, it stands for a licentiousness which threatens traditional moral standards. Both of these seemingly contradictory attitudes rest on a common assumption: that the exposed body is emotionally charged and potentially subversive." This book reviews treatment of the male nude in photography, from the minimal (yet controversial) work in the 19th century to the more assertive photography of the late 20th century. Leddick's fiction works include My Worst Date and Sex Squad. (Bowker Author Biography) show less