EROTIC GAY MAN’S SCRAPBOOK – TAORMINA, ITALY / PROVINCETOWN CONNECTION

Item #1633

Assembled in 2016, this scrapbook brings together a wide-ranging and carefully curated group of postcards, art prints, CDVs, and magazine cuttings. Across 58 leaves (116 pages), the album contains 193 objects, including four CDVs—two by Naples photographer Giorgio Sommer—and more than 30 RPPCs. Items are mounted with corner tabs and adhesive; many are annotated in a careful hand, with colored pencil borders framing select images.

The collection is unified by a distinctly homoerotic sensibility, with a sustained focus on the male nude across time and geography. Source material ranges from circa 1900 through the late 20th century, juxtaposing antique Neapolitan postcards and studio photography with modern reproductions and magazine imagery.

Particularly notable is the compiler’s engagement with the history of homoerotic photography. A dedicated section labeled “Wilhelm von Gloeden” anchors the album, alongside related imagery and followers, including staged classical scenes of nude youths in Mediterranean settings. These are complemented by later material, including works attributed to Pierre et Gilles, Duane Michals (with accompanying poetic text), and other 20th-century artists.

The album is not merely accumulative but interpretive. Handwritten notes—including a transcribed passage from Daryl Hine (1991)—situate the imagery within a broader aesthetic and historical framework. Maps, captions, and identifying inscriptions (e.g., Taormina, Napoli, Capri) reinforce a geographic and cultural throughline centered on Southern Italy and its long-standing association with idealized male beauty.

A striking and unexpected inclusion is a photograph captioned “Eugene O’Neill ? and Tennessee in Provincetown,” suggesting an awareness of queer literary history and the Provincetown art colony, and extending the album’s scope beyond Italy into transatlantic queer cultural networks.

The scrapbook appears to be the work of an unidentified compiler, likely a gay man, whose sequencing, annotations, and visual pairings suggest both connoisseurship and personal investment. The initials “SB” appear on one page. While most captions are in English, the persistent focus on Taormina—long associated with expatriate artists and homoerotic photography—points to a deeply Italophilic sensibility.

A compelling and highly intentional modern construction that bridges classical antiquity, early photography, and late 20th-century queer visual culture, forming a personal yet historically aware archive of the male form.

Price: $600.00