Wilhelm von Plüschow
View of Algiers
c. 1912
Cyanotype
6.69 x 8.66 in (17 x 22 cm)
Courtesy of Galerie Au Bonheur du Jour
Wilhelm von Plüschow (b. 1852, Wismar, Germany – d. 1930, Berlin, Germany) created a body of homoerotic photographs depicting South Italian youths after moving there at the age of eighteen. He would often sign his works as “Guglielmo Plüschow.” The models, often adorned in antique attire and posed in ways recalling classical iconography, follow subjects similar to those found in the photographs of his cousin Wilhelm von Gloeden, whose works Untitled [Two Friends], 1904 and Untitled [Two Boys on a Rock], 1899 are featured in the collection.
In View of Algiers, a naked man crowned by a wreath of antiquity, poses parallel to the camera, compositionally reflecting a painting of a female nude – perhaps one of the most common motifs in all of art history. The representation of the nude male inscribes the work in the tradition of late 19th-century homoerotic art, particularly in its idealized depictions of male youth derived from classical sculpture. Taken in Algiers, the present photograph is a testament of the numerous voyages taking the artists through several Mediterranean countries.
After a series of legal setbacks with the Italian government who strongly opposed the representation of masculine nudes, von Plüshow returned to Germany after 1910. He died in Berlin in January 1930.
Provenance
Galerie Au Bonheur du Jour, Paris
Other works by Wilhelm von Plüschow