PEEP SHOW PINUPS - THE GOLDEN ERA

Humans have always depicted erotica - among the oldest surviving examples are Paleolithic cave paintings and carvings. The ancient Greeks did it; the Romans did it; on the opposite side of the Atlantic the Moche of Peru did it. Before the middle of the nineteenth century these images generally consisted of paintings and drawings. But Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre changed all of that by inventing the first practical process of photography. Daguerreotypes did not fade with time and as with so many advances in image capture-polaroids, cine film, video and digital cameras-artists quickly used the new technology to depict the undraped feminine form. The French pioneered erotic photography, producing nude postcards-although the cards were never sent by post, it was illegal. Nudes were also marketed in magazines. And so the pinup was created. The pin upA" images could be cut out of magazines or newspapers, or be from postcards. Such photos often appear on calendars, which are meant to be pinned up anyway. Later, posters of pin-up girlsA" were massproduced. Peep Show Pinups: The Golden Age looks at the wealth of images that have survived from the end of the nineteenth and the start of the twentieth centuries.