Item #6133 The Goddess of Sex [Handmade Bettie Page Photo Album]
The Goddess of Sex [Handmade Bettie Page Photo Album]
The Goddess of Sex [Handmade Bettie Page Photo Album]
The Goddess of Sex [Handmade Bettie Page Photo Album]

The Goddess of Sex [Handmade Bettie Page Photo Album]

New York: np, 1956. New York: np, 1956. Forty-three (43) silver gelatin prints measuring 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 in. pasted into notebook. In black-leather boards. [43] p. 5 ¼ x 8 ½ in. Binding detached at spine, and text block is loose though still together; three photos have become detached from paste but remain present; otherwise very good. Item #6133

A homemade album dedicated to Bettie Page, “Queen of the Pinups” and the first modern fetish star, with forty-three silver gelatin photographs affixed to each page and many handwritten captions below.

Silver gelatin prints of Page from the 1950s are exceedingly rare, especially so in such quantity. Of particular note are the fully nude images of Page which were not widely available at the time and sourced only through back-alley networks.

Page was an active pin-up model throughout the 1950s and at the time of the production of this album was the top pin-up star in New York. She was a frequent model for fetish photographer Irving Klaw and gained widespread recognition in this role.

She was shot by pin-up model turned photographer Bunny Yeager for the famous “Jungle Bettie” series and was featured in the Christmas 1955 issue of Playboy, in its third year of production. Though she stopped modeling in 1958 and slipped largely into obscurity for a time, Page’s work experienced a revival in the late 1970s that continues today. Her work as a pinup star shaped the image and parameters of beauty and sexuality for decades.

A unique artifact of clandestine mid-century sexuality and the birth of modern pornography, with holograph annotation from an unknown Bettie Page fan and rare silver gelatin prints.

“A Study of the Glorified.”.

Price: $3,500.00