Vintage BBW Burlseque Watercolor

From the James D. Julia Auction's three day auction, August 26-28, 2008; item #3508.

CHAIM GROSS (American, 1904-1991) THE FOUR DANCERS. Watercolor depicting four burlesque type dancers. Inscribed and signed bottom right and dated "1950". Housed in a modern ivy decorated gilt frame with triple matte. SIZE: Sight: 9-1/2" x 13-1/2". CONDITION: Very good. 9-94038 (800-1,200)

It's OK To Admit You Like Klimt; I Do

To coincide with Tate Liverpool's exhibition Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life in Vienna 1900, Tate Etc. brings together Herbert Lachmayer, a cultural historian and founder/director of Da Ponte Institute in Vienna, and Alfred Weidinger, a Klimt specialist, "to debate how the man who remains one of the world’s most popular modern artists took voyeurism to new heights".

Bits from that exchange...

Alfred Weidinger:

The Pre-Raphaelite artists, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, were a big influence on Klimt’s brother Ernst. When Ernst died Klimt finished his brother’s Pre-Raphaelite-inspired work. During his long depression he became very interested in these artists, and then painted what is for me the most important picture he did at this time – Portrait of Sonja Knips from 1898. Moll saw this Pre-Raphaelite influence and how Klimt could work with it to create a very particular Viennese art.

Herbert Lachmayer:

Yes, it is important to know that Viennese artists were able to avoid copying the melancholy of the Pre-Raphaelites because of their sense of irony and ambiguity. Depression was the most feared danger for a creative artist – ironical melancholy was the Viennese solution. In Klimt’s case, he transformed the rather boring aspects of the Pre-Raphaelites and injected “pornosophic fantasies” into his work. By pornosophic, I mean the way in which he presented his idea of erotic obsession as a life-long fetishistic love for the porno-details of the female body. Like Egon Schiele, he has been stigmatised as a pornographic artist, but in my understanding his erotic obsession was a pornosophia, just as philosophy is defined as a “love for wisdom”. Using the term “pornographic” regarding Klimt’s oeuvre reveals the petit bourgeois mentality of the person using it. He was a master of voyeuristic erotic stimulation and therefore produced his pornosophic fantasies in the head of the client – maybe encouraging him in an elegant way to have better sex at least. Even the way Klimt dressed was part of a “staging” of stimulation. In his studio he wore a long working dress – resembling a Moroccan jellaba – but he was completely naked underneath. He was a highly auto-erotic exhibitionist, using the ritual of professional distance from the model as a tool of auto-stimulating his erotic fantasies.

This next photo comes from the Tate article, but is for illustrative purposes of the models; it bears this notation: Anonymous photograph of a dancer taken at the studio of Madame d'Ora (Dora Philippine Kallmus) in Vienna (1923). Gelatin silver print © Ullstein bild - IMAGNO

ALFRED WEIDINGER We must not forget that Klimt had been used to working with nude models for a long time. Not only at art school, where they did nude studies every day, but also with his colleagues at the Künstlercompagnie. So he had fifteen or twenty years’ practice, and was fully sensitised to the female body and spirit. For me, it was very interesting to realise, in doing my research, that whereas most of the female figures featured in the Künstlercompagnie ceilings are clothed, in the studies they are all nude. You will not find many drawings where the models are dressed. He had to know what happened with the body, and then he dressed it.

HERBERT LACHMAYER So Klimt’s artistic production was almost like a drug – painting the nude increased the voyeuristic appeal.

ALFRED WEIDINGER In this respect the Beethoven Frieze became his masterwork, because it was the fulfillment of everything that he wanted to do at this time in 1902. The 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition was designed to celebrate the life and philosophy of Beethoven with the theme based on Richard Wagner’s interpretation of the 9th Symphony, and each Secession artist contributed to it. Klimt’s idea was to do a 30ft fresco. You have to wonder why was he doing a fresco – and with such huge dimensions? It was unheard of to be creating such a piece in Europe, for a show that was going to be on for only two months.

HERBERT LACHMAYER It was like a Hollywood production…

ALFRED WEIDINGER Or like a show in Las Vegas. It really was a grand act. In the frieze Klimt knew he could more or less fulfil his wishes. He had the power to do something on this scale, and Moll gave him that power. The Beethoven Frieze didn’t cause a scandal, though. Of course there were always art critics who wrote bad reviews of Klimt, but there were some who wrote good ones. He and the Secession artists knew they needed a reason to put images of nude women on the wall, and in Beethoven they found it.

ALFRED WEIDINGER Another difference is that Klimt uses all kinds of women in his frieze – young girls, old girls, awful women, beautiful women, fat women, thin women. The whole world of women is in the Beethoven Frieze. There are also a lot of penises in the painting, which, because of the distance from the floor level, many people miss. I was there a few weeks ago because we had to do some restoration work and when you are level with it, there they are – lots of penises. He painted them as ornament, but this was also a very brave and risky thing to do. He was gambling with the visitors – he was having fun with them. It is important to know that side of him.

HERBERT LACHMAYER In this respect he was a professional voyeur and knew, of course, what unconscious effects his images would evoke in the minds of his male audience. Klimt had his own erotic theatre in his studio at home.

The whole article is worth reading in it's entirety; so do so.

For more on Gustav Klimt & his works, see:

The Kiss: Klimt's painting takes me on a journey of self-discovery

Bedazzled: the great and sometimes scandalous artist Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt at Tate Liverpool: If it's Klimt's gleaming beauties you're after you won't find many at Tate Liverpool. But the new show has its own riches

Gustav Klimt: is his art worth £135m?

Black Beauty

From African bodies of evidence: Dartmouth's gutsy 'Black Womanhood' probes old wounds:

In 1810, an English ship's surgeon brought Saartjie Baartman, a young South African woman, to London. She was displayed on stage and made to squat to show her genitals. After she died in 1816, her brain, skeleton, and genitals went on exhibition in Paris, where they remained until 1974.

Baartman, dubbed the "Hottentot Venus," was a victim of colonialism at its most vulgar. She plays a generative role in "Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body," a sweeping, gutsy, and provocative exhibition organized by curator Barbara Thompson at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College.

I'd never heard of Baartman. But now I'm fascinated -- in that ashamed awareness of those who rubberneck in ignorance which is combined with anger and sorrow for the woman herself.



It wasn't until 2002 that she returned home -- nearly two centuries later. (See also: The Life and Times of Sara Baartman "The Hottentot Venus", a film by Zola Maseko.)

The exhibition looks right up my alley -- to bad the museum isn't in my alley.

However, the catalog itself is apparently worth seeing. (You can purchase it from the museum.)

From a collector's standpoint, the following reminds me how many nude African female postcards I see:

Partial nudity was common in 19th-century Africa, but imagine the reaction of Victorian-era Europeans landing there, greeted by bare-skinned natives. They deemed Africans primitive and erotic, applied anthropometry - the measuring of body parts - to attempt to understand them, and sent postcards home, many with photos and captions intended to titillate and reinforce presumptions of white racial superiority.

Nude Tarot

More images from the deck of tarot cards I mentioned here.



As mentioned, the deck offers two versions of The Lovers cards for sexual preference options.




The Daughter of the Moon Tarot, originally called A Matriarchal Tarot, is built on Dianic Wiccan principals and features many female goddesses -- and lots of nudity. Shown below are Kali, Pele, Mawu, Calafia, & Malama; examples of many cultures, colors and physical types.







The round card shape is also considered to be more female in symbolism. Those familiar with tarot cards will note the uniqueness presented with round cards -- depending upon your grace in reading them, round cards are that much more challenging or fluid to read.


The book gives brief legends for each female archetype, goddess, and image used; and yes, because I'm one of those kind of womyn, my copy of the book is autographed by author Ffiona Morgan at the National Women's Music Festival in '93 (in Indiana that year).

Music For Chubby Chasers: Huggin' And Chalkin'

Huggin' & Chalkin' (words and music by Clarence Leonard Hayes and Kermit Goell) is a cute little song about a fellow's love for his BBW... With a bit of a twist.

Huggin' & Chalkin'

I got a gal who's mighty sweet
Big blue eyes and tiny feet
Her name is Rosabelle Magee
And she tips the scales at three-oh-three

Oh, gee, but ain't it grand to have a gal so big and fat
That when you go to hug her, you don't know where you're at
You have to take a piece of chalk in your hand
And hug a ways and chalk a mark to see where you began

One day I was a-huggin' and a-chalkin' and a-chalkin' and a-huggin' away
When I met another fella with some chalk in his hand
A-comin' around the other way over the mountain
A-comin' around the other way

Nobody ever said I'm weak
My bones don't ache, my joints don't creak
But I grow pale and I get limp
Every time I see my baby blimp

Oh, gee, but ain't it grand to have a gal so big and fat
That when you go to hug her
(You don't know where you're at)
(You have to take a piece of chalk in your hand)
(And hug a bit and chalk a mark to see where you began)

One day I was a-huggin' and a-chalkin' and a-beggin' her to be my bride
When I met another fella with some chalk in his hand
A-comin' around the other side (over the mountain)
A-comin' around the other side

She's a mile wide!
(Chalkin' up a markdown and yellin' "No More!")
When I met another fella with some chalk in his hand
A-comin' around the other side (over the mountain)
Over the Great Divide!!

Hoagy Carmicheal brought this song to #1 on the Billboard charts in 1947, so he's most famous for it. In 1946, Kay Kyser charted at #8, and after Hoagy, both Johnny Mercer (reached #8) and Herbie Fields (#14) also had chart success.

You can download Huggin' and Chalking' by Hoagy Carmicheal here.


I've only seen sheet music featuring Mercer, as shown above.

That's Bull Moose, Not Randy, Jackson

Bullmoose Jackson was born Benjamin Clarence Jackson in Cleveland in 1919. It was in 1943 that bandleader Lucky Millinder's band that gave him the unforgettable name "Bull Moose."

Here's more according to Schadenfreudian Therapy -- Featuring 1950-60s vintage Calypso music (the REAL stuff, not Harry Belafonte or the souvenir steel drum music sold to tourists) -- where I found Bull Moose:

His own band, the Buffalo Bearcats, earned more in the late 1940s than both Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn. Bullmoose hired some great sidemen for his band, including drummer Panama Francis, bassist Red Callender, (longtime Monk tenor man) Charlie Rouse, and Sam "The Man" Taylor (best known for his work on the original Screamin Jay Hawkins classic "I Put a Spell on You"). But the song you probably know him for -- "Big Ten Inch Record" -- was recorded after his greatest fame, in 1952 with the Tiny Bradshaw Orchestra.

You can even download seven Bullmoose Jackson cuts here.

Songs in the download are:

Big Fat Mamas Are Back in Style
Keep Your Big Mouth Shut
Nosey Joe
Cherokee Boogie
We Can Talk Some Trash
Bowlegged Woman
Get Off the Table, Mabel

Amazingly, I've heard Get Off the Table, Mable. But you know I'm lovin' Big Fat Mamas Are Back in Style and Bowlegged Woman. Wonderful music and risque songs; how have I lived so long without these songs?

I also found the lyrics to Big Fat Mamas Are Back in Style:

Listen, sister
You should wear a smile
Jump for joy just like a child
'Cause big fat mamas are back in style

Listen, brother
It's all over that dial
Hear that crowd, they're going wild
'Cause big fat mamas are back in style

You need a big fat mama
And boys you can't go wrong
A big fat mama
To rule your home sweet home

Listen, mama
You gotta keep that double chin
'Cause the big fat mamas and the little fat mamas
Are back in style again

(More info on the lyrics here.)

Bull Moose died in 1989, but his mark on the history of rhythm & blues will remain forever.

Satyr & Nymph Playboy Comics

I remember these "Satyr & Nymph" comics from my parents' hidden Playboys...



They are by Eldon Dedini, and you can find out more Pinups: Eldon Dedini's Satyrs and Nymphs at Animation Archive.

Vintage BBW Pinup Art

Slip of a Girl turned me onto these...



Hilda, the vintage BBW pin-up girl, is from artist Duane Bryers.