Author Archives: Moko

A Figure Study by Muirhead Bone

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Muirhead Bone studied architecture as a young man in the 1890s, and afterwards began studying painting and drawing. Bone used a realistic style in drawings, etchings, and watercolors of landscapes and buildings, including buildings under construction and ruins of demolished buildings. In 1900 he gave art classes in Ayr, Scotland. He was appointed as a British War Artist in 1916 to create propaganda for the war effort in World War I. He was knighted in 1937

Muirhead Bone – Little Girl Nude (no date)

Little Girl Nude is one of over 570 of Bone’s work in the Boston Public Library. Bone delighted in complex drawings of landscapes, machines, and architecture. He did drawings of people less often, and this is the only one I could find in the Boston Public Library collection, or in image searches, that would be appropriate for Pigtails.

At the bottom of the drawing Bone wrote his name, the note “Life Class”, and an illegible note in parentheses. An advertisement for the art classes that Muirhead Bone operated in Ayr said that life classes are included in the instruction; this drawing may be from one of those classes.

Kazuo Kenmochi, Ryuzaburo Umehara, Tae Umehara and the Origin of Photo-Lolicon

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Ron coined the term Photo-Lolicon and defines it, in the Pipeline entry for Kishin Shinoyama, as “… a kind of obsession, with erotic undertones, with the intimate life of a young girl.” A review of a book featuring a selection of Photo-Lolicon artists was published in Pigtails here.

Kazuo Kenmochi (剣持加津夫) is usually credited as having originated the Photo-Lolicon movement in Japan with the publication of his photo book Twelve-Year-Old Myth (12歳の神話) in November 1969. Photo-Lolicon came about as a result of the serendipitous contacts between Kazuo Kenmochi, the photographer; Ryuzaburo Umehara (梅原 龍三郎), the painter; and Tae Umehara (梅原 多絵), the model. The Kanji characters that are conventionally translated as “myth” are literally “divine story”, so in this context myth should be taken as a mythologic legend rather than as a false belief. Before we get into Twelve-Year-Old Myth, let’s consider the antecedents of Photo-Lolicon.

Kazuo Kenmochi – Tae Umehara (1969) (1)

In traditional Japanese culture, nudity was not as taboo as in the West. Japanese families would go to the public sento bath where people of both sexes and all ages bathed together. It may seem that under those circumstances, artistic nudes would be as common as pictures of landscapes or cherry blossoms, but this was not the case. An article in the Japanese Wikipedia states that the first appearance of nude girl photos in a book in Japan came in 1943 when Der Körper des Kindes und seine Pflege by Stratz was translated into Japanese and sold in that country. This did not immediately lead to more nude photo books because two years later World War II ended and Japan was put under American occupation until 1952. American standards regarding nudity were imposed, which ruled out nude photo books.

Kazuo Kenmochi – Tae Umehara (1969) (2)

The end of the War also allowed the Japanese people to see Japan as it was viewed by other countries. What they saw was not pretty; Japan in 1945 had a reputation of brutality and cruelty. Whether the reputation was deserved or the result of anti-Japanese prejudice is not something to be discussed here, but it is important that whatever the cause of the stigma, Japanese people wanted to overcome it. Gentler aspects of Japan were emphasized, such as youth, beauty, and cuteness. Thus the stage was set for the appearance of Photo-Lolicon.

Ryuzaburo Umehara (1888–1986) traveled to Europe as a young man and studied the art of the Impressionist masters, particularly Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Gauguin, Matisse and Nolde also served as inspiration for Umehara, who introduced Impressionist painting to Japan. In 1969 Ryuzaburo Umehara was Japan’s greatest living artist.

Kazuo Kenmochi – Tae Umehara (1969) (3)

Girls like to have pictures of themselves made. If you have been reading Pigtails for a while, you may have noticed that girls from artistic families often model for artists. Apparently Tae Umehara, the granddaughter of Ryuzaburo Umehara, wanted to be a model. I could not find any source that stated why Ryuzaburo Umehara did not paint a picture of Tae. Although Ryuzaburo Umehara did paint nudes, he did so in an Impressionist style. His nudes definitely have artistic merit, but they are not cute. Perhaps Tae did not want a painting of herself in her grandfather’s style. My opinion is that either Ryuzaburo or Tae or both of them decided that a more realistic image would be more becoming of Tae.

Kazuo Kenmochi – Tae Umehara (1969) (4)

Fortunately, Ryuzaburo Umehara had contacts in the artistic community in Japan, and was acquainted with Kazuo Kenmochi. Kenmochi was a talented photographer famous for documenting the problem of drug addiction in Japan. Art photos of a young girl (Tae Umehara was twelve years old at the time) would be something different for him. He accepted the project, and met with Tae and Ryuzaburo Umehara. Kenmochi had his idea of how the photos should be made. Ryuzaburo had other ideas, and annoyed Kenmochi with his kibitzing. Despite the friction between the two artists, the photo session was completed very successfully.

Kazuo Kenmochi – Tae Umehara (1969) (5)

Photographs from the session are available here and here. All are outdoors: some at the shore and some at an inland location. Although a book containing these photos was later published under the title Europe, there is nothing that would indicate that the photos were taken in Europe. Tae is fully nude in all photos that appear online. The first two shown here are closeup portraits of Tae. In one of them the colors are modified to give a surreal look. It is the only non-realistic photo of Tae that I have seen. In the second portrait she seems uncomfortable that a dragonfly is on her.

Kazuo Kenmochi – Tae Umehara (1969) (6)

The next three are typical monochrome images. The first of these was taken at about the same level as the model. In the second the camera is looking up at Tae, and in the third it is looking down on her.

The last two images are color. Only a few color photographs are in the book. The second color image is the cover for singer Horie Mitsuko’s single Twelve-Year-Old Myth. The same photo is in the book Twelve-Year-Old Myth. The record was released in March 1970, a few days after Horie Mitsuko’s thirteenth birthday. Horie Mitsuko was a twelve-year-old girl when she recorded the song.

Kazuo Kenmochi – Tae Umehara (1969) (7)

The book Twelve-Year-Old Myth was extremely popular. After the first edition sold out others were printed. Then a condensed volume, エウロペ (Europe) was published, containing what the editor considered to be the best of the previous editions. The last of the editions, Europe II, was released in December 1978, and sold for 3300 Yen. Recently a used copy was for sale at a price of 27,905 Yen, which was equal to $210.43. Other photographers sought to imitate Kenmochi’s success, and the Photo-Lolicon craze of the 1980s followed.

Statues by Kjeld Moseholm

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Kjeld Moseholm-Jørgensen (aka Kjeld Moseholm) was born in Denmark in 1936. He is one of Denmark’s most famous sculptors, with his art exhibited in public places in Denmark and in other countries. Moseholm’s style is usually abstract. His figures are often bulbous, lending his work a touch of comedy. Nevertheless, there is a melancholic aspect to his sculpture. His abstract figures are often in strange postures or situations.

Kjeld Moseholm – Anette (1994)

The five works covered in this post are different from Moseholm’s typical work in two ways. First, each includes a young girl. Second, they are realistic figures in realistic poses. The Moseholm realistic statues I have seen are all females, usually nudes, or are a group of statues that contains a female. Perhaps he thought that the female figure is very aesthetically pleasing in a lifelike representation, and there was no way to improve on it with abstraction.

Kjeld Moseholm – Annette at Rudkøbing (1994)

Anette or Annette is peculiar in that two examples of the statue have slightly different names. The first image is of Anette in the city park Borås, Sweden. The second image, Annette, is on the grounds of the church in Rudkøbing, Denmark. I could not find information about the model for this statue. Where I live, in the US, it probably would not be acceptable to have a statue of a nude girl on the grounds of a church.

Kjeld Moseholm – Barn på Gungbräda (1992)

Barn på Gungbräda (Children on a Seesaw) is also in the city park Borås, Sweden. Moseholm sculpted many female nudes, but sometimes made statue pairs with both a boy and a girl, as in Barn på Gungbräda.

Kjeld Moseholm – Børn (1976)

The statues pair titled Børn (Children) is on display by the Nordea Bank in Assens, Denmark.

Kjeld Moseholm – Kommunikation (1989)

Most of the Moseholm girl statues I found are nudes, but the next one is an exception. The group includes a boy wearing shorts, a girl wearing a short dress, and a pigeon. The girl is writing; the boy is reading, and the pigeon may be a carrier pigeon. The group is titled Kommunikation (Communication), and is at the Post Office in Ringe, Denmark.

Kjeld Moseholm – Siddende Pige (1988)

Sitting Girl, aka Siddende Pige, aka Fille Sur Une Chaise is another popular statue with a simple pose. The first photo shows this statue in the garden behind the Slagelse, Denmark library. The next photo is of the statue in a public park in Monaco. The statue was installed in Monaco in 1981, and in Slagelse in 1988.

Kjeld Moseholm – Fille Sur Une Chaise (1981)

Two Photos by Josef Větrovský

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Josef Větrovský was a Czech photographer who was born in 1897. Compared to other artists, there is not a lot of information about him available on the internet. He studied photography under František Drtikol, and his style of photography is similar to that of Drtikol.

Josef Větrovský – Nude With Shadow (1927)

Větrovský photographed in Art Deco style, emphasizing contrast of light and shadow, simple geometrical shapes, and female nudes. He photographed many adult female portraits and nudes. The two photos shown in this post are the only Větrovský photos of young girls that I could find. Větrovský participated in a Czech Photographic Society exhibition in 1926. In 1929 he published, at his own expense, A Handbook of Practical Topography. In 1939 he assembled a retrospective exhibition of his work. Větrovský died of a heart attack in 1944.

Josef Větrovský – Girl With Ball (1931)

The two images posted here, Nude With Shadow and Girl With Ball, are both typical Art Deco style. In the first, the dramatic shadow catches my attention almost as much as the girl.

Public Sculpture of Girls in Hungary

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László Marton – Little Princess (1) (1972)

Public sculpture of girls in Hungary (Magyar Republic) has something of a family-oriented perspective. Little Princess (Kiskirálylány) by László Marton is a statue of the sculptor’s oldest daughter, Évike. Marton said,

I modeled it after my own daughter; she was maybe six years old and playing in the garden. She dressed as a princess: laid a bathrobe on her shoulders and put a [paper] crown on her head. I managed to capture this moment and immediately felt that this was a successful work of art. Years later, the capital requested a statue from me. I immediately thought of the “Little Princess'” and luckily we managed to find the place where the statue feels good.

László Marton – Little Princess (2) (1972)

Actually, there are several places in which this statue “feels good”. The original statuette is in the Hungarian National Gallery. The life-size copy shown in the photos here is on the Danube promenade in Budapest. Another copy is in the artist’s hometown of Tapolca, and yet another is in Japan, in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space cultural center’s concert hall.

Raffay Dávid – A Girl With Her Dog (1) (c2007)

The next statue, A Girl With Her Dog, is also in Budapest near Little Princess. A Girl With Her Dog was created by Raffay Dávid. Both of Raffay Dávid’s parents were sculptors, and Raffay has been sculpting since he was three years old. By the time he was 48 years old, in 2011, he was the father of five children. His affection for children seems to show in A Girl With Her Dog.

Raffay Dávid – A Girl With Her Dog (2) (c2007)

The next statue, Little Girl With Dog, is also a girl and dog, but I could not find out the name of the artist that created this piece. It stands in the city of Szeged.

Unknown Artist – Szeged Hungary Little Girl With Dog (unknown date)

The city of Esztergom is the site of the statue of children playing on a rail. I do not know the creator of this sculpture, nor could I find the title of the statue.

Unknown Artist – Esztergom, Hungary Children (unknown date)

Böjte Horváth István created War Memorial, the last sculpture in this article. It is a memorial to the veterans from Vácrátót who lost their lives in the two World Wars. Typical of Hungarian sculpture, it emphasizes the family. The wife, daughter, and infant child of the deceased veteran are shown, but the husband/father of them is missing.

Böjte Horváth István – Vácrátót War Memorial (2014)

Rescued from the Plague by Frank William Warwick Topham

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While looking for information about another artist, I did a reverse image search and found this painting of a nude child being passed out of a window. I was intrigued by the unusual topic of this painting, Rescued from the Plague, which is quite different form other nude paintings that were popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rescued from the Plague was painted in 1898 by Frank William Warwick Topham. According to this article by art critic Sherry Ross, it was a time when British artists were working to make the nude more acceptable to the public. Ross wrote that artists were “…pushing boundaries and often creating great art. To use the nude body in ways never allowed before in history, and yet to accomplish this without seeming either prudish or pornographic…”

Frank William Warwick Topham – Rescued from the Plague (1898)

Classical mythology, orientalism, fairies, and historic people such as Lady Godiva were used as excuses for painting nudes so often that by the 1890s it may have been getting hard to find on original topic for a nude painting. Folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland implied in 1891 that artists seem to be exhausting excuses for nudes, and may consider bizarre folk rituals as inspiration for paintings of naked girls (see Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling, page 135). Topham found a historical story that inspires a unique painting without being too strange.

Frank W. W. Topham was born in London, England in 1838. His father, Francis W. Topham, was an artist noted for his watercolor paintings. Frank traveled widely in Europe, especially in Italy with his father and other artists. Topham began exhibiting his paintings at the Royal Academy in England in 1863 and became well-known for his detailed historical works. The original version of Rescued from the Plague is an oil painting, 72 inches by 45 inches, and illustrates an incident described in Samuel Pepys’ diary.

An epidemic of bubonic plague ravaged London in 1665, and approximately a quarter of the city’s population died. Pepys recorded the following story in his entry for September 3 of that year:

Among other stories, one was very passionate, methought, of a complaint brought against a man in the town for taking a child from London from an infected house. Alderman Hooker told us it was the child of a very able citizen in Gracious Street, a saddler, who had buried all the rest of his children of the plague, and himself and wife now being shut up and in despair of escaping, did desire only to save the life of this little child; and so prevailed to have it received stark naked into the arms of a friend, who brought it (having put it into new fresh clothes) to Greenwich; whereupon hearing the story, we did agree it should be permitted to be received and kept in the town.

Frank William Warwick Topham – Going to Market (1888)

When I saw the image, I assumed the child was a girl, but the story as recorded by Pepys does not tell us whether the child was a boy or a girl, nor does it indicate the age of the child. The sex of the child in the painting could not be determined by the genitals, because they are not shown. The child is too young to discern the sex by secondary sex characteristics. The clothing for the child, presumably held by the girl standing in the left part of the painting, cannot be identified as a girl’s or a boy’s clothing. The child was naked, I assume, because it was feared that clothing in the house was infected with plague. According to bloshka.info, both males and females wore long hair in 1665, therefore the hair cannot be used to determine the child’s sex. Perhaps because Pepys does not specify the sex of the child, Topham also decided not to make it too obvious. Nevertheless, I believe that the child in Rescued from the Plague is a girl due to the general feminine appearance, especially of the face.

Comparing the child in Rescued from the Plague with children in other F. W. W. Topham paintings, the child in question seems to be typical of the artist’s paintings of girls. The girl in his painting Going to Market is especially similar to the child in Rescued from the Plague. Although the paintings were created ten years apart, it is possible that the same model may have been used. The background may be painted first in an oil painting, and the figures can be later painted over the background. For the painting Rescued from the Plague it is not likely that the models were able to hold their pose, holding the child in the air while Topham painted them. If the child was sketched laying on a table years before 1898 and the sketch was used as a model for the 1898 painting, the model for Rescued from the Plague and for Going to Market may be the same girl.

Frank William Warwick Topham – Rescued from the Plague (watercolor) (1919)

Topham kept this painting for over twenty years, then donated it to the Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London in 1919. It’s a beautiful painting, and I believe that he could have sold it if he wanted. Perhaps he kept the painting so long, then presented it to a prestigious gallery because he liked the painting and was proud of it. That would also explain why he painted a copy of Rescued from the Plague in watercolor in 1919. The watercolor is brighter than the original oil painting, and there are a few other minor differences.

Gotthard Schuh in Java and Bali

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Gotthard Schuh was born in Germany to Swiss parents in 1897. The Schuh family moved back to Switzerland in 1902. Gotthard had a passion for art, and by 1919 he was active as a painter. He traveled and lived in Italy and Germany before finally returning to Switzerland in 1926. It was at that time he began to work as a professional photographer. Schuh would come to be much more renowned as a photographer than as a painter. The first illustration in this article is a sketch of a young girl that Schuh created in 1922. Although it demonstrates his talent as sketch artist, Schuh’s photos are, in my opinion, superior to his drawing.

Gotthard Schuh – Study of a Young Girl (1922)

Schuh joined the staff of the Zürcher Illustrierte magazine in 1932. He also worked as a freelance photographer for other European magazines during the 1930s. Photographic assignments required him to travel throughout Europe, and in March 1938 he began an eleven-month journey through Singapore, Sumatra, Java and Bali.

Javanese Tobacco Worker is the only photo that I am sure is not from Bali in this article. The model was photographed from a low angle, giving a sense of dignity in that the viewer must look up to the model.

Gotthard Schuh – Javanese Tobacco Worker (1938)

Balinese Girl is also photographed from a low angle. This is my favorite of the photograhs in this article. Palm tree and girl combine to make a dramatic photo.

Gotthard Schuh – Balinese Girl (ca.1938)

Singapore at the time was part of the British Empire; it was an island city that was a bastion of British military power in the Far East, and was a thriving commercial center. Sumatra and Java are both large populous Islamic islands that were then ruled by the Dutch. Bali was also a Dutch territory, but it is a smaller island, less westernized and less influenced by Islam. Bali retains its pre-Islamic, pre-European traditions more than the other places Schuh visited. Balinese temple dancers are famous around the world for their graceful movement. It is not surprising that Bali was featured in so many of the Schuh photographs.

Tanzende Mädchen is the title for the next three photos. Dances are performed to please the Balinese gods. During the performance, the dancers fall into a trance and are believed to be posessed by the diety. Sanghyang Dedari is one of the most famous of the Balinese temple dances. It is performed only by prepubescent girls, preferably about eight years old.

Gotthard Schuh – Tanzende Mädchen, Bali (1938)

Gotthard Schuh – Tanzende Mädchen, Bali (1938)

Gotthard Schuh – Tanzende Mädchen, Bali (1938)

The following three portraits of girls are typical of Schuh’s photographic style. Note that none of the models are looking directly at the camera.

Gotthard Schuh – Bali (1939)

Gotthard Schuh – Untitled (ca. 1938)

Gotthard Schuh – Untitled (ca. 1938)

The last three photographs are also of temple dancing girls. In 1937, shortly before Schuh’s visit to Bali, the documentary Trance and Dance in Bali was filmed by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. Schuh’s photographs document the same dances, but Schuh appeared to be more interested in the artistic merit of his images.

Gotthard Schuh – Untitled (ca. 1938) (1)

Gotthard Schuh – Untitled (ca. 1938) (2)

Gotthard Schuh – Untitled (ca. 1938) (3)

A book of photographs from this trip Inseln der Götter (Islands of the Gods) was published in 1941. The book is Schuh’s most famous work. Gregor Krause had published a book with photographs of Bali (Bali 1912) and Inseln der Götter is in some ways similar. Krause, however, concentrated on glamour photos of adult women, while Schuh had more youthful models. Schuh died in Switzerland in 1969.

Bruno Héroux

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Louis Carl Bruno Héroux was born in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony in 1868. He began his study of art, specializing in woodcuts, at age 18. He finished his art education in 1892, and shortly after that he started work as a magazine illustrator. From 1900 on he was a freelance artist, and one of the most popular of the time for engravings and etchings. He illustrated the three-volume Handatlas of Human Anatomy by Werner Spalteholz (1913). Most of his illustrations are of adults, but a few of his pictures are of girls reviewed in this article.

Bruno Héroux – Ex Libris Anna von Zur Westen (circa1900)

Bruno Héroux – Ex Libris Toni Kruse (circa1910)

Bibliophiles in the early 20th century would often glue bookplates to the inside book cover to identify ownership. The first image is a bookplate for Anna von zur Westen. Look closely at the dark border around the girl and you will see grotesque faces. The border is quite a contrast to the happy girl in the sunshine.  The bookplate for Toni Kruse features both a young girl and an adult woman.  Note the faces of children playing musical instruments in the foliage above the woman and girl.

Bruno Héroux – Girl with Hat and Muff (circa1890)

Girl with Hat and Muff is one of the simpler Héroux illustrations. It is a little incongruous that she has a muff to warm her hands, yet is nude except for that and her hat. There is something around her feet, as if she had been wearing more clothing and removed her clothes. Girl with Hair Bow and Butterflies is another uncomplicated work. There is some handwriting on it, but I cannot read it. I can make out “EX L. verein Berlin” which I interpret as Berlin Ex Libris Club, and the artist’s signature “B. Héroux”, but nothing more. Can anyone help?

Bruno Héroux – Girl with Hair Bow and Butterflies (no date)

The next three images are greeting cards. Two are New Year’s cards, for 1907 and 1911, and one is a generic greeting card from 1920. Something is written on the card from 1920; can anybody read it? I can only make out the phrase “Gönner und Freunde”. A dog on the 1911 card has torn up the paper on which 1910 was printed. The writing on it is a New Year’s greeting to his patrons and friends, “für seine Gönner und Freunde Neujahre 1911 B Héroux.”

Bruno Héroux – Greeting Card (1920)

The 1907 card is also dedicated to patrons and friends with best wishes for the New Year. At first I was not sure if the child featured on the 1907 card was intended as a boy or a girl. After looking carefully, I believe it was intended to be a girl. The long flowing hair, the expression, and the hint of a wreath of flowers in the hair is more typical of Héroux’s girls.

Bruno Héroux – New Years Greeting (1911)

Huckepack (Piggyback) is an illustration from a 1911 German newspaper. It appeared under the poem Mai by Wilhelm von Scholz. Der Gold Käse (The Gold Cheese) is a strange title. I thought it may be the title of a children’s story, but I could find no story with that title.  If anybody can offer an explanation for this title, please submit a comment.  The boy in the picture looks like Alfred E. Neuman.

Bruno Héroux – New Years Greeting (1907)

Bruno Héroux – Huckepack (1911)

Elfe und Kröte (Elf and Toad) also appears to be an illustration for a fairy tale.

Bruno Héroux – Der Gold Käse (no date)

Bruno Héroux – Elfe und Kröte (no date)

Bruno Héroux’s personal and business card features a nude young girl. Héroux also featured a nude young girl on the visiting card he designed for Marie Schmidt. People today may find something offensive about a person who has an image of a naked girl on his card. Of course a lot of people today would find the nude little girls unacceptable on bookplates, greeting cards and newspaper illustrations as well.

Bruno Héroux – Business Card (no date)

Two Sculptures by Elisabet Stienstra

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Elisabet Bea Stienstra was born in The Netherlands in 1967. She studied art at Academy Minerva in Groningen and the State Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. She is one of the more famous sculptors working today. Stienstra has a unique style, with realistic figures in surreal situations. She has an ability to work well in various mediums; bronze, marble or wood. Two of Stienstra’s sculptures, Panic in Prato and Virgins of Apeldoorn, are the topic of this post.

Elisabet Stienstra – Panic in Prato (2005)

Panic in Prato is remarkable in that it consists of three statues on top of a factory building in Prato, Italy. The factory building actually becomes part of the sculpture. When Panic in Prato was created in 2005, the textile factory on which the statues were placed belonged to Valdemaro Beccaglia, a connoisseur of art and president of the Pecci Museum of contemporary art. Panic is evident in the faces of the girls in Panic in Prato, but why are they panicked? They appear to be climbing over the rooftops to escape something, but it is not obvious what they are fleeing.

Elisabet Stienstra-Panic in Prato – Standing (2005)

Elisabet Stienstra-Panic in Prato – Climbing (2005)

Virgins of Apeldoorn consists of three bronze sculptures of girls in a park in the town of Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. The girls appear to be floating in the air; one face up, one rolling over, and one face down. Actually, the girls are supported by their long hair and long nightgowns that extend to bases on the ground. Nevertheless the illusion of floating is remarkable.

Elisabet Stienstra-Panic in Prato – Diving (2005)

Elisabet Stienstra-The Virgins of Apeldoorn (1) (2001)

A controversy concerning Virgins of Apeldoorn arose in 2017 when Ferdinand Cacnio unveiled his statue Uplift at University of the Philippines in Manila. Uplift is not on topic for Pigtails because it is the statue of an adult young woman, so I will not include an illustration of it here. Uplift is very similar to the Virgin of Apeldoorn lying on her back. Elisabet Stienstra’s husband wrote on Facebook that, “Elisabet doesn’t do Facebook herself. She [Elisabet Stienstra] would like it to be known however that she sees Mr. Cacnio’s sculpture as plagiarism.” Ferdinand Cacnio denied that he copied his statue from Stienstra.

Elisabet Stienstra-The Virgins of Apeldoorn (2) (2001)

Magnus Weidemann

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Magnus Weidemann was born in 1880 in Hamburg, Germany. As a young child he looked up to his older, artistically-inclined brother Theodor. Theodor died young and Magnus inherited his art supplies. By 1898, at age 18, Magnus began his career as a painter, mostly of watercolors. The latest Magnus Weidemann painting I could find is Storm Surf, painted in 1967. He was a painter for at least 69 years.

Mädchenakt mit Vergissmeinnicht (Naked Girl with Forget-Me-Nots) was painted in 1927. In searching for Weidemann’s paintings, I was unable to find many young nudes. Art sites devoted to Weidemann concentrate on his landscape paintings. A few landscapes have a nude adult woman in the painting. I found only two Weidemann paintings of girls, both on auction sites. Mädchenakt mit Vergissmeinnicht was very small on the auction, but Pip provided a better example.

Magnus Weidemann – Mädchenakt mit Vergissmeinnicht (1927)

Some time around 1898 to 1900 Weidemann found his first nude model, who was also his cousin and would later become his first wife. Weidemann was married three times. The names of his second and third wives, but not his first, can be found in online biographies of Weidemann. It would be interesting to know how old the first Mrs. Weidemann was when she started modeling, but I could not find any more information about her.

Magnus Weidemann – Children on the Beach (1944)

Children on the Beach was found on a Czech auction site, and the title of the painting was in Czech. I have used the English translation of the Czech title. Children on the Beach was painted in 1944, during World War II. Weidemann complained during the war that it was prohibited to paint outdoors or to make any pictorial representation of the landscape. Presumably, Children on the Beach was not painted from life.

Painting was Weidemann’s passion, but did not pay well enough to support him and his wife. In 1900 he began studying Protestant theology, and in 1908 became the pastor of St. Clemen’s Church in Nebel, Nordfriesland, Germany. At the start of World War I Magnus Weidemann volunteered to serve as a medic in France. Later during the war, Magnus and his wife divorced. When Magnus returned to Nebel he made a studio in the rectory and hired a housekeeper. The housekeeper brought with her a twelve-year old foster daughter. Both the housekeeper and the child modeled for Weidemann.

Magnus Weidemann – Heidewanderin (1926)

Weidemann met Molli Mollenhauer, a twenty-year-old dancer and gymnast in 1919. She became Weidemann’s model, and in 1920 she married him. Magnus resigned as a pastor and moved to the nearby town of Siethwende. Magnus and Molli became involved in Freikörperkultur (FKK, nudism) which was gaining popularity at the time. Weidemann became friends with two other prominent artists: the photographer Lotte Herrlich and the symbolist illustrator Fidus (Hugo Höppener). In 1926 Weidemann moved to the German Island of Sylt, which was then and remains to the present a popular destination for naturists. He continued to live on Sylt for the rest of his life.

Magnus Weidemann – Gretchen (1926)

In the 1920s, Weidemann’s painting came to be eclipsed by his work in photography. His photography documented the FKK movement with images of people of all ages, mostly female. In 1923 he became editor of the nudist magazine Die Freude. Many of his photographs and poems appear in the magazine, and other German FKK magazines. He wrote the preface to Lotte Herrlich’s book Rolf, and wrote books of his own, including Körper und Tanz and Deutschen Baden.

Magnus Weidemann – Gisela (1926)

Heidewanderin (Heath Walker) is from the July 1926 edition of the German nudist magazine Lachendes Leben. Gretchen, the next photograph, is from the May 1926 edition of Lachendes Leben. Gisela is similar to Gretchen in that both are simple poses with the model looking down rather than at the camera. Gisela is from the April 1926 edition of Weidemann’s own magazine, Die Freude.

Magnus Weidemann – Glückliche Kindheit (1927)

These photographs are all from naturist publications available online at the FKK-Museum site, and are from the period of 1926 to 1930. Naturist magazines from the 1920s and 1930s in the FKK-Museum contain many artistically-posed photos, similar to poses in nude paintings. Publications of the 1950s and later have a greater proportion of casual photos, more like family snapshots than fine art paintings.

Magnus Weidemann – Blumen (1927)

Glückliche Kindheit (Happy Childhood) is also from Die Freude; this photo was published in the May 1927 edition. Although Weidemann concentrated on women and girls, he photographed some males as well, as in this photo. In his 1997 book Empire of Ecstasy, Karl Toepfer quotes Weidemann as saying he finds female subjects more suitable for nude photography because males are “active in contrast to the passive-intuitive character of women.”

Magnus Weidemann – Die G’schamige (1927)

Blumen (Flowers) is from the November 1927 issue of Lachendes Leben. Note the similarity of the pose to Gretchen and Gisela. The last two photos are from the book Deutschen Baden by the artist. Weidemann lived and worked on the North Sea coast of Germany, in the area where Frisian is spoken. Die G’schamige is translated from standard German (Hochdeutsch) as “The Shameful” , and from Frisian as “The Shy”. Struwwelpeter is a colloquial term for a child with messy hair.

Magnus Weidemann – Struwwelpeter (1930)

Molli Weidemann moved to Cologne to train as a dance teacher, and Magnus hired a housekeeper whom he married in 1932. He continued working as a painter and photographer until his death in 1967.