Herbert List: Junge Manner

by Herbert List (Photographer), Stephen Spender (Contributor)

Hardcover. Gray cloth-covered boards with title stamped in gray on cover and spine, with photographically illustrated dust jacket. Photographs by Herbert List. Introduction by Stephen Spender. Edited by Jack Woody and Max Scheler. Includes a list of plates, a chronology and a selected bibliography. Designed by Jack Woody. Unpaginated (112 pp.), with 72 sheet-fed gravure plates beautifully printed in Japan. 11-1/4 x 14-1/4 inches. This first edition was limited to 5000 hardbound copies. Fine in Fine dust jacket. From the introduction by Stephen "The young men selected by [List] are beautiful by the standards of Greek and Roman sculpture and architecture, and by the Renaissance ones of Michelangelo's sculpture and of his figures of youths..." From the "During 1929, Herbert List began to photograph the young men he knew and traveled with throughout Greece, Italy, and Germany. He captured the innocence of their beauty and physical prowess before Hitler's politics commandeered those qualities for his own bleak purposes. The relationship, in List's mind, of these young men to Greek statues is emphasized by the occasional juxtaposition of nude or semi-nude figures with fragments of Greek statues."

Genres: Art and Photography

112 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1988

Reviews

[Anthony McGill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I recommend Herbert List The Monograph for a complete collection of the best of List's magnificent photographs on various subjects, this one is an ideal volume for those looking for a more compact book concentrating on his tasteful and classical portraits of mainly young German men circa 1930-1960.
You'll recognize many of these iconic portraits as they have appeared in numerous homo-erotic exhibitions and books over the years.
Wonderful to have all these classic and tasteful pictures all together in this beautifully presented volume of 72 photogravure plates.

"List's photographs of young men are much influenced by classical and Renaissance art. His models remind us that the ideal of the classical revival in Europe was the drawing of the nude male model. And their statuesque poses relate not only to Greek sculpture, but also to the idea - present in Cezanne's few paintings of male bathers, in Seurat and in Picasso - that the male nude stands outside and beyond class or nationality in the magnificence of the architecture of bone, the potency of flesh."

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intro by Stephen Spender is mindless bullshit.