Masque
In the 1930s, Quaintance seemed preoccupied with depicting disembodied heads. He did it in lithographs, on book dust jackets, in advertising imagery and, when that was not enough, he ventured into the third dimension. The result was a series of wall plaques in high relief that he collectively called masques, while giving individual titles to the various faces.
Bob Delmonteque R.I.P.
Bob Delmonteque has died. He passed away on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24, 2011 in Los Angeles. His age was reported as 85, which is a small fib, because when Bob reached 85, he remained 85 for the rest of his life. For his website, bobdelmonteque.com (still online as of this writing), Bob wrote a brief bio in which he says he was born Nov. 9, 1919, which would have made him 92. His given name was Mike Diaks.
The online autobiography completely omits the part of Delmonteque's life that may be of greatest interest to readers here. After the end of WWII, Delmonteque became one of the great early male physique models. He was initially made famous by photographer Douglas of Detroit, whose photos of Delmonteque appeared in nearly every male fitness and physical culture magazine of the day — this at a time when frontal male nudity could land you in jail.
Lithographs, part 5 of 5
These final five lithographs were produced shortly before Quaintance's death. As a result, they were not heavily advertised nor were many sold, and they are quite difficult to find. Bacchant and Rodeo Victor were issued as a pair, and both images appeared on the covers of numerous magazines in the US and Europe. The size was 11x14 inches — the same as Baths of Ancient Rome and Spartan Soldiers Bathing — except the wide margins were omitted. The attached image shows an advertising insert Quaintance sent to his mail-order customers to announce this duo. (Pardon the seam on the color images, which I had to scan in two passes each.)
Kanaka Postscript
After posting the previous entry, I remembered a 2009 conversation I had with the nephew of Victor Garcia. I will call him Fermin, as he does not wish me to use his name. Victor was George's romantic partner long before the founding of the Quaintance Studio. After George and Victor ceased to be lovers, Victor remained George's business partner and principal studio photographer, and he co-inherited the Quaintance estate.
Fermin told me that, as a child, he and his sister and mother (Victor's sister, Josefina) would visit George and Victor in their New York City apartment. The painting Kanaka Fisherman was hanging over the mantelpiece, and Fermin and his sister would giggle at it and call it "the nakedy man."
The story of how I located Fermin, and what happened with the Quaintance estate after George's death, is told in the forthcoming biography.
Kanaka Fisherman
A visitor to this blog recently wrote to ask me about an original Quaintance canvas he owns. He enclosed snapshots. Lo, it was Kanaka Fisherman, but it was a fisherman I have never seen.
Two other versions of Kanaka Fisherman are known. One of them bears a 1940 date and the vertical signature. In it, the man is throwing a net. This painting (center image in photo) belongs to a collector in Los Angeles and it was purchased directly from the Quaintance estate in the 1970s. The canvas orientation is horizontal.
Murals
Quaintance was his own best promoter, and one of the things he promoted himself as was a muralist. But where are the murals?
There's one for sure: it hangs over the baptismal font at the Stanley, Virginia Baptist Church that his mother attended. Quaintance painted it at her request, with the blessings of the church, and it's there today for all to see. It depicts life-sized figures of John the Baptist holding the hand of Jesus and leading him into the River Jordan. Six male figures are prostrate on the shore, including an anomalous jungle boy wearing a tiny loincloth.
Quaintance was also said to have painted the mural adorning an entire wall of Mae West's boudoir, at her 7,500-square-foot Santa Monica beach house. The residence was considered to be an art deco masterpiece, but the mural was destroyed during remodeling after West sold the property. I have a poor, foreshortened snapshot of the mural. It does not appear to be the work of Quaintance.
Lithographs, part 2a of 5
After publishing part 2 of this series, an email correspondent reminded me of a conversation long ago in which we discussed the Reynolds lithographs. There are in fact two others of which I have photos, and there may be more, as Quaintance painted a lot of these female pinups.
Censorship
During Quaintance's lifetime, the U.S. Supreme Court had yet to come up with the Miller Test for obscenity, and nearly anyone who was offended by an image could declare it obscene. It was usually OK to show a male model's buttocks but frontal nudity was a big no-no, as was any suggestion of homoeroticism. Even if a male model wore the ubiquitous posing strap, "excessive genital delineation" could be cause for legal trouble.
Having spent 1947 in jail for using the mail to distribute "obscenity," Physique Pictorial publisher Bob Mizer employed legal advisers to avoid future errors in judgment when deciding what images could be safely published in his hugely popular magazine. Quaintance's imagery and advertising were a mainstay of Physique Pictorial in its early years, but when the painting Morning in the Desert was selected for the cover of the Feb. 1952 issue, there needed to be some changes.
Lithographs, part 4 of 5
The next two lithographs were printed simultaneously: Baths of Ancient Rome and Spartan Soldiers Bathing. These were smaller than the previous pair, with the actual print area measuring 14x11 inches. Only 10 of Quaintance's 54 canvases of the Male Physique period had a horizontal or landscape orientation, and these are two of them.
The black and white photos of these two paintings could never to justice to the subtle reflections in the water and on the tiles surrounding the pools, so this pair of canvases was an excellent choice to become the next two color lithographs.
Lithographs, part 3 of 5
If asked to name Quaintance's masterpiece, most people will choose either Siesta or Preludio. Apparently Quaintance thought so too, because those were the first two canvases of his "Male Physique" period that he chose to reproduce as color lithographs.
He had always sold 8x10 black and white photos of his canvases to a public that had an unquenchable thirst for them — his mailing list was said to number over 10,000 names. Later, acceding to the demand for color reproductions, he began to sell color chromes, or slides, of the paintings. But the lithographs were new territory. They were printed in full color that carefully duplicated the original oils and printed on heavy stock with a 16- by 20-inch print area and ample margins. The selling price was $5. After Preludio was issued as a lithograph, you could purchase both for $8.
