Erotic Art & Nude Photography

The following erotic art and photography books are for the visual beasts among us—for those who have a fine appreciation for the body in all its glorious forms—naked, or outrageously draped in fetish costumes. 

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Looker by Richard Kern
Abrams (June 1, 2008); ISBN-10: 0810995301

If the model is the exhibitionist, then I am the voyeur. —Richard Kern

Richard Kern is a post-modernist punk photographer who has worked in New York city rock music and No Wave art circles since the 1970s. In Looker, through a series of carefully constructed vignettes, Kerns models proceed through their daily private lives, seemingly unaware of the camera. Or are they wittingly playing into the obvious cinematic intrigue? The balance of control present in each frame is a powerful and sensual statement.

Looker is thought-provoking in its gentle nature, pastoral tones, and caring reflection of private innocencebut it is also freshly and stunningly erotic, silently exuberant in its portrayal of intimacy and abandon. Richard Kerns photographs are a peek into a world of mystery and eroticism.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Two Knotty Boys Showing You The Ropes:
A Step-by-Step, Illustrated Guide for Tying Sensual and Decorative Rope Bondage
Green Candy Press (November 20, 2006); ISBN-10: 193116049X

When Two Knotty Boys, Dan and J. D., began teaching rope bondage together in 1999, they discovered that most people learn best when they're shown close up, step by step, and repeatedly how to tie basic knots and combine them into bondage techniques. It is this learning process that they duplicate in this book. With the help of world-renowned photographer Larry Utley, they use over 750 photos and captions to explicate the soup-to-nuts techniques for turning great knots into great bondage that is safe, sensual, attractive, and effective.

Readers can learn at their own pace, review whole techniques at a single glance, or even lay it flat on the table (beside their blindfolded partner) and follow along as they tie. Two Knotty Boys Showing You the Ropes appeals to those interested in improving the quality of their sex lives, not to mention aficionados of bondage and discipline/sadomasochism (BDSM), both curious newcomers and serious players alike.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Senses by Frank De Mulder
Te Neues Publishing Company (July 15, 2007); ISBN-10: 3832792082

This startling collection showcases the work of internationally acclaimed fashion and glamour photographer, Frank De Mulder. His work has graced top advertising campaigns and leading magazines. Known for the electric eroticism of his work, De Mulder uses light and contour to create compositions with painterly clarity. Respectful of his subjects, De Mulder captures feminine beauty at its most intimate and beguiling. His sensuality goes far beyond mere titillation—a feast for the mind as well as for the eyes.

A leading Belgian fashion and glamour photographer, Frank De Mulder is a celebrated personality within the international photo scene. He has worked for many top advertising campaigns and a host of leading magazines, including Playboy, FHM, GQ, Maxim, Elle, and Menzo.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

H2O by Howard Schatz (Photographer)
Bulfinch (November 12, 2007); ISBN-10: 0316117757

Acclaimed photographer Howard Schatz broke new ground in the 1990s with his books WATER DANCE and POOL LIGHT, two collections of luminous photographs of dancers, some clothed and some nude, all taken underwater. His underwater photography has been called uncanny, lithe and athletic, exquisitely real, and mysterious, and has been widely imitated in art and advertising. The dancers seem to transcend time and space to become floating, ethereal objects. Schatz's new underwater photographs are shot in a state-of-the-art, custom-built pool fitted with studio lights and covered with a giant dome to regulate temperature. The results are stunning. His unique images—at once lyrical, fantastic, and palpably real—express the beauty of inspired movement magically free of the restrictions of gravity.

Howard Schatz is the author of 15 books of photography, including the critically acclaimed Athlete. He lives in New York with wife and business partner, Beverly Ornstein.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Reflections by Guido Argentini
Te Neues Publishing Company; Mul edition (October 15, 2007); ISBN-10: 3832792139

When we look in a mirror, we consider who we are, and who we want to be. These female nudes from the master of erotic photography challenge our perception of what is real and what is not. Argentini skillfully plays with mirrors to achieve unusual perspectives. The resulting images combine come-hither sensuality with sophisticated distance. With all this posturing and role-play, who knows what will happen next? Decide for yourself who is the fairest of them all.

Guido Argentini was born in Florence, Italy in 1966. He has lived in Los Angeles since 1990 and has photographed for Vogue, Marie Claire, Playboy, Max and Men's Health. He has already published two books with teNeues, Silvereye and Private Rooms.

An ideal gift for lovers of sophisticated erotica A daring work sure to raise some temperatures!
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Shunga: The Erotic Art of Japan by Marco Fagioli
Universe Publishing (August 15, 1998); ISBN-10: 0789302454

Shunga, or "images of spring," are erotic polychrome engravings painted by the masters of the Japanese Ukiyo-e school during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The shunga served as illustrations for love novels, instructive albums for young wives, and even lucky charms for warriors.

This book is the first to present a special collection of rare, previously unpublished prints, enriched by texts that introduce the various periods and defining characteristics of the genre. Unabashed and exquisitely rendered, these images are a surprising accessible visual chronicle of erotic fine art.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Roy Stuart: 25th Anniversary by Jean-Claude Baboulin (Editor), Roy Stuart (Photographer)
Taschen's 25th Anniversary Ed edition (August 14, 2007); ISBN-10: 3822831182

"Animal sexuality differs from eroticism in that human sexuality is limited by taboos and the domain of eroticism is that of the transgression of these taboos" is how Georges Bataille explains eroticism. Casting a new light on that most human of acts, Roy Stuart presents us here with a book of erotic power rarely seen. The brilliant technique and skillful presentation of his videos and stills present sexuality directly and without prudery.

Stuart's photos and glimpse videos have acquired cult status even amongst experienced hardcore fans, and with good reason, for they represent an exquisite representation of the forbidden. In turns voyeuristic, in turns narrative, his pictures with their disarming explicitness subvert traditional moral codes and force the viewer to reevaluate his or her preconceived notions of sexuality. The photographs assembled in this book, which in another context might have been condemned, instead give a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of Roy Stuart's magical theatre of transgression and taboo.

"Stuart's style and candor make voyeurism as respectable as you'd ever want it to be." —Playboy, United States
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Pink Box: Inside Japan's Sex Clubs by Joan Sinclair
Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (October 1, 2006); ISBN-10: 0810992590

In Pink Box, photographer Joan Sinclair takes us on a journey inside the secret world of fuzoku (commercial sex) in Japan, a world where kawaii (cute) collides with consumerism and sex.

Unrivaled in their creativity and the sheer number of choices, the clubs featured in this book offer their clientele every fantasy imaginable. Subway groping, visits to the nurse’s office, and comic book character encounters are just the beginning of the immense list of possibilities that are played out in colorful playrooms for adults where no detail is overlooked. Sinclair’s photographs capture it all, while an introduction by sociologist James Farrer provides a brief history of commercial sex in Japan and places the images in the context of contemporary Japanese culture.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Jan Saudek: Retrospective by Jan Saudek
Taschen; New Ed edition (November 2006); ISBN: 3822830208

The Czech Republic has long been a land of mystery and magic, home to alchemists, artists, and the original bohemians, all of them weavers of spells, creators of fantastic worlds of the imagination. Internationally famous Czech photographer Jan Saudek is no exception, and equally as uncompromising in pursuit of his own unique vision. For over four decades Saudek has created a parallel photographic universe, a two-dimensional home full of longing, peopled with the most extraordinary characters and colored by desire. The timeless strength of his hand-tinted photographs lies in their poetic compositions and their forceful—at times ribald—pictorial language, with its overtones of medieval genre pictures and Baroque mythology.

Rejecting the traditional beauty in his famous nude photographs, Saudek shows the distinctively different: old women, fat women, children; real people in tableaux vivants that remind us of everything from surreal early movies to fin-de-siecle carnival nights. They exist outside time, a uniquely colored and almost mythical theater of dreams. Covering his debut in the 1950s through his lesser-known work to recent images, this dazzling collection offers us the true "velvet revolution," fertile and unsettling images from the dreams we might still have.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

The New Erotic Photography Edited by Dian Hanson & Eric Kroll
Taschen (March 15, 2007); ISBN-10: 3822849243

The most provocative modern image makers Imagine walking into a room filled with the world's finest contemporary erotic photographers, each with a portfolio of his or her best work. As you browse the photographs they discuss inspiration, censorship, how to find models, and how to make a living capturing beautiful women on film and in pixels.

The New Erotic Photography is the room, and 82 photographers from 14 countries are the hosts of this intimate gathering. In this 608 page volume you will meet Ralph Gibson, Jan Saudek, Terry Richardson, Natacha Merritt, Petter Hegre, Richard Kern, Bob Carlos Clarke, Thomas Karsten and the many fresh new talents currently redefining eroticism. Playful, provocative and exuberantly sexy, these aren't your granddad's art nudes; this is The New Erotic Photography.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Butt Book: Best of Butt Magazine by Gert Jonkers, Jop Van Bennekom (editors)
Taschen (November 2006); ISBN: 3822830216

Best of BUTT: Bringing back the "sex" in homosexuality...

Since its first legendary issue in 2001, international quarterly magazine BUTT has been bringing together groups of young alternative gay guys all around the world, connecting fashion, sex, and art with a good sense of irony.

Put together by the magazine’s founding editors Jop van Bennekom and Gert Jonkers in collaboration with photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, this book is a 'best of' compilation of the first 17 issues of BUTT, full of interviews with famous personalities and photographs by the likes of Terry Richardson, Inez van Lamsweerde, and Wolfgang Tillmans as well as unknown talent. Collectors of the magazine who have been desperately searching for rare back issues will be able to round out their collections with this compendium, which will also be a delight for those who haven’t yet discovered the joy of BUTT.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

The Big Book of Breasts by Dian Hanson
Taschen (November 2006); ISBN: 3822833037

Say no to silicone: The greatest natural breasts of our times...

Some call it the American obsession, but men everywhere recognize the hypnotic allure of a large and shapely breast. In The Big Book of Breasts, Dian Hanson explores the origins of mammary madness through three decades of natural big-breasted nudes. Starting with the World War II Bosom-Mania that spawned Russ Meyer, Howard Hughes’s The Outlaw and Frederick’s of Hollywood, Dian guides you over, around, and in between the dangerous curves of infamous models including Michelle Angelo, Candy Barr, Virginia Bell, Joan Brinkman, Lorraine Burnett, Lisa De Leeuw, Uschi Digard, Candye Kane, Jennie Lee, Sylvia McFarland, Margaret Middleton, Paula Page, June Palmer, Roberta Pedon, Rosina Revelle, Candy Samples, Tempest Storm, Linda West, June Wilkinson, Julie Wills, and dozens more, including Guinness World Record holder Norma Stitz, possessor of the World’s Largest Natural Breasts.

The 420 pages of this book contain the most beautiful and provocative black and white and color photos ever created of these iconic women, plus nine original interviews, including the first with Tempest Storm and Uschi Digard in over a decade, and the last with Candy Barr before her untimely death in 2005.

In a world where silicone is now the norm, these spectacular real women stand as testament that nature knows best.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Real Girls by Scott Lane
Goliath Books; Multilingu edition (July 15, 2006); ISBN: 3936709203

It is often said that nothing is more timeless than the beauty of the female nude but there are fewer things which have a shorter cultural shelf-life. Closely tied to popular culture, every era has produced its own distinctive style of erotic imagery. Scott F. Lanes gives us a peek at the beautiful girl next door that you won’t soon forget. A sexy, seductive and naked exploration of the pure beauty of his natural, young models. 

More than any other photographic subject, the nude resists being separated from its social context; photographers who try to do so overlook one of the most crucial demands placed upon erotic photography. Photographers who lack an historical understanding of the genre frequently misunderstand the unique conceptual difficulties which have always plagued those working within this medium. Gauging the sexual aesthetic requires a feeling for the relationship between subject and observer at that particular moment.

These photographs represent authentic, contemporary women in an immediate, moment of natural trust with the camera, the viewer.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

The Mammoth Book of Illustrated Erotica by Jakubowski Maxim & Marilyn Jaye Lewis (Editors)
(January 9, 2002) Carroll & Graf; ISBN 0786709219

As artful as it is exciting, as tasteful as it is daring, this up-market illustrated Mammoth volume offers a massive gallery of stunning images by eighty photographers who have set the trends in nude photography and made a mark with their erotica in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Among the photographers included by the editors of this piquant and varied collection stand Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton, Wolfgang Eichler, Bob Carlos Clarke, Mario Testino, Wolfgang Tilmans, Roy Stuart, Trevor Watson, Michele Serchuk, Trevor Baker, Pascal Baetens, and Eric Kroll. 

All the photographers in the volume are generously represented by six pages of images that showcase their particular talent to best advantage in highly nuanced, top-quality black-and-white reproductions. Accompanying the presentation of each set of images, meticulously chosen for their aesthetic as well as their erotic appeal, are brief biographical vignettes of the photographers themselves that together provide a survey of developments and experiments that have advanced the artistry of contemporary erotic photography.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

The Playmate Book by Gretchen Edgren
Taschen (November, 2005); ISBN 3822848247

Beloved Bunnies! In celebration of Playboy magazine’s 50th anniversary, TASCHEN brings you this ultimate Playboy Playmate tribute featuring each and every Playmate of the Month since issue number one. 

Beginning with Marilyn Monroe herself and including such favorites as Pamela Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith, and Jenny McCarthy, this chronological look at the history of Playboy centerfolds includes photos of the Playmates as well as updated personal information about their lives to this day - just enough to spark your memory or pique your interest and surely leaving you yearning for more...
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Natural Beauties by Eolake Stobblehouse (Editor)
Goliath Books (July, 2004); ISBN 3936709084

A compilation of color nude photos from 20 erotic photographers, introducing a new style of Nude Art Simple Nudes, focusing exclusively on a model's beauty. The Simple Nudes philosophy is to simply celebrate the model's beauty, and not subsume the model to any other purpose, not sex, not Art, not commercialism. Like the Dogma film movement from Europe, Simple Nudes are characterized by the inherent beauty of the model in the natural state; no forced poses. no unnatural styling or props.

This new, independent form of expression, also named DOMAI style ( from the web site DOMAI.com), which invented and champions it, is not a compromise between Art nudes and sex nudes, but is a true third art of nude appreciation.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Sin-A-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties
Feral House (November 9, 2004); ISBN 1932595058

Swappers, swingers, transvestites, nymphos, hookers, dominatrixes, lesbians in the 1960s, these stock characters were staples of the naughty novel, and their lurid antics formed an entire genre dubbed "sleaze" by legions of avid modern-day collectors. Uncovering a racy repository of American fantasies and fears from more than 40 years ago, Sin-A-Rama ravishes readers with the splendidly spicy cover art of the period's top illustrators as well as entertaining excerpts from the best and worst of the genre. 

Cultural commentary is featured as well, including fascinating accounts of the ways in which the genre's publishers - often mobsters - would distribute their titles to the public.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Pin-Up: The Illegitimate Art by Jim Silke
DH Press (December 10, 2004) ISBN 1595820051

Finally, a second book on glamour art by the author/artist of Bettie Page, Queen of Hearts. Now, for the first time, Jim Silke shares his hilarious first-person account of life as a ‘pinup' artist—from the comic-strip vixens that influenced his youth, to his real-life adventures photographing Hollywood's most beautiful starlets and models, to his slaving over magical images of Bettie Page, Brigitte Bardot, and a host of other beauties. Lavishly illustrated with over 100 new images by Silke and classic ‘girl artists' George Petty, Coby Whitmore, Enoch Bolles, Al Parker, Rolf Armstrong, and others. Pin-Up: The Illegitimate Art is a delightful, sharp, insightful look at the ‘bedtime babies,' ‘devil women,' and ‘bare-naked ladies' that grace the walls-and hearts-of red-blooded lady lovers the world over.

Silke is one of the few artists who could write this story. From his Grammy Award-winning stint as a music industry art director to his years as a magazine publisher, glamour photographer, screenwriter, and comic book artist, Silke's sensual artistic vision has made a distinct and lasting impact on contemporary culture.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

Exposed: The Victorian Nude by Alison Smith
Watson-Guptill Pubns; ISBN 0823016331; (May 2002)

The epitome of high culture or an assault on public morality? The nude figure was one of the most controversial issues in Victorian art. It was also one of the most conspicuous categories for the visual image at every level, from elite paintings for the Royal Academy to mass-produced photographs and magazine illustrations. 

Exposed: The Victorian Nude provides a fascinating overview of the nude figure—both male and female—and the intriguing role it played in Victorian art. While it concentrates on painting, sculpture, and drawing, this beautifully illustrated reference also explores the depiction of the naked body in other media—including photography, popular illustration, advertising, and caricature—and discusses the issues of morality, sexuality, and desire that are relevant even today.

Since nudes were an important subject for most Victorian artists, Exposed: The Victorian Nude showcases dazzling artwork from such legendary masters as Millais, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Whistler, and Sargent, as well as pivotal figures of early English modernism. Cutting across the conventional categories of style and period, this guide offers a fresh, engrossing vision of Victorian art and culture unmatched anywhere else.
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage by Midori, Craig Morey (Photographer)
(December 1, 2001) Greenery Pr; ISBN: 1890159387

From ornately decorative to excruciatingly stringent, Japanese rope bondage is an art which has developed over centuries of martial and erotic practice. Now, accomplished Japanese-born pro-domme and bondage practitioner Midori shows step by step how to achieve beautiful and exciting Japanese bondage on a variety of genders and body types. Each chapter starts with a spectacular, tasteful full-color photo of the finished bondage pose - harnesses, hogties, standing and bent-over poses, and more - then goes back and explains with text and line art how each rope and knot is placed to achieve the final result. Readers can use the detailed instructions to experiment safely and erotically with their own partners - or simply enjoy viewing the pictures of Midori`s expertise. 
Available at: Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

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