Albert Arthur Allen - Premiere Nudes - 2001

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During the 1920s. a time when the United States was, from all appearances, open to artistic experimentation, a Bay Area photographer named Albert Arthur Allen unwittingly took on the Goliath of nudity and politics. An obscure figure who operated outside the margins of the fine art community, Allen was known to a small coterie of clients who bought boudoir studies, pictures of comely young voluptuaries. (In Europe these photographic etudes were an acknowledged integral part of the academic tradition.) A homespun aesthetician who had a marked propensity for self-invention, Allen produced photographic protfolios that were initially inspired by the naturist movement. Today his images, which are typically perceived as high camp, are more familiar than his name.

Essay by Daile Kaplan

There is, of course, a fine distinction between the non-essential nude and the true nude. The non-essential nude is a picture which has no message to speak. While the true nude gives a version of beauty, both physical and spiritual—two great needs of humanity. — Albert Arthur Allen