Exotique. Lot of 3 hardcover volumes in slipcase reprinting the first 36 issues from 1951 to 1957. Copyright 1998. Published by Taschen. Volume I includes an introduction in English, German and French. Leonard Burtman, the hand and lens behind this classic American ""digest of the unusual and bizarre"", was Forced to make a drastic career switch after witnessing the desert A-Bomb tests of the Fifties while working as a government scientist. Turning his back on the horrors of the twentieth century, he devoted the rest of his life to images of sexual Fantasy, which in their own way have shaped the male collective consciousness just as powerfully as the nuclear missile. His conversion coincided in with the growing liberation of US cities as they rebelled against Eisenhower to embrace a night-life of decadence, sensuality, and physical abandon. ""Exotique"" presented the pin-up as a Femme Fatale, publishing shot after shot of the dominatrix adorned with tight corset, razor heels, complex underwear and an expression on her Face that demanded obedience. Enthusiastically casting from a roster of willing models (including the legendary Betty Page) as well as call-girls and dancers, Burtman experimented with bondage scenarios and group poses, and as a bonus hired in the maestros of the illustrative arts like Eric Stanton to bring his pneumatic ideal to life even more extravagantly. This colossal collection contains all this and more