From utopian dreams to Soho sleaze: the naked history of British nudism

When Annebella Pollen was 17, she near down her strict Catholic upbringing for the beingness of a new-age hippy, surviving successful a caravan and frolicking bare among the lasting stones of Devon, portion earning a surviving by modelling for life-drawing classes. That aboriginal experience, followed by a narration with a bric-a-brac dealer, shaped her aboriginal beingness arsenic an creation historian. “I’m precise funny successful things that are culturally illegitimate,” says Pollen, who present teaches astatine the University of Brighton. “A batch of my probe has been looking astatine objects that are despised.”

Foraging trips with her spouse to car-boot income alerted her to a affluent seam of 20th-century nudist lit that is inactive emerging from the attics of mediate England: magazines whose wholesome titles – Sun Bathing Review oregon Health & Efficiency – concealed a analyzable dialog with some nationalist morality and the British weather. This is the taxable Pollen has picked for her latest publication Nudism successful a Cold Climate, which tracks the question from the spartan 1920s done the titillating 50s, erstwhile the caller wide media whipped up a frenzy of motivation anxiety, to the countercultural 60s and 70s, erstwhile the founding members were dying disconnected and it each began to look a spot frowsty.

Though nudism had its roots successful 19th-century Germany, the archetypal British campy was acceptable up successful 1924 successful an Essex backmost plot – for climatic reasons astir of its centres were successful the comparatively balmy southbound of England. By 1931 the connection had entered the Oxford English Dictionary where, for decades, it became interchangeable with naturism. Early pictures amusement members digging and sawing to laic the foundations of a utopian governmental movement, oregon drinking beverage unneurotic successful the sheds they had built. “In the precise aboriginal days, galore were intellectuals: campaigners, psychiatrists, artists, writers and pioneering feminists who argued that nudism would bring an equality of the sexes,” says Pollen. By 1933 the signifier had assumed specified a motivation precocious crushed that 1 Anglican vicar condemned the bathing costume arsenic a “satanic invention” that promoted titillation done part-concealment.

But the intrusion of the camera began to situation naturism’s assertion to beryllium a wholesome household movement, by privileging pictures of beauteous bodies and playing accelerated and escaped with the marketplace successful erotica. At a clip successful the 30s erstwhile the question had less than 10,000 members, the 2nd contented of Sun Bathing Review sold 50,000 copies; the slender, young, achromatic women who dominated the pictures were mostly photographed by men, for men. By the precocious 50s, nude images were regularly seized by constabulary nether obscenity laws. “Often the aforesaid exemplary would beryllium utilized for a naturist photograph adjacent to a wheelbarrow, and for a sleazy photograph, produced successful a Soho studio, bending implicit with a choker and fishnet stockings,” says Pollen.

Nude photographs are not thing that tin beryllium stabilised, Pollen says; we each bring our ain perspectives and intentions to them. But they “are worthy taking earnestly for what they uncover astir bodily ideals and realities successful a play of accelerated societal and taste change”.

Nudism successful a Cold Climate: The Visual Culture of Naturists successful Mid-20th Century Britain by Annebella Pollen (Atelier Editions) is retired now in the UK and globally connected 11 January.

Back to nature: 4 images from Nudism successful a Cold Climate

East Midland Sunfolk. Photograph: Colin R Clark Estate

East Midland Sunfolk, Colin R Clark, 1951
Annebella Pollen: “Although pictures of nudist clubs purported to amusement mean radical enjoying themselves, often models would beryllium shipped successful truthful a lensman could merchantability images some to naturist and pin-up magazines. I similar the information that this is of a radical of women of antithetic ages having a fantastic time, due to the fact that older women were truthful seldom depicted. And everyone present was really a naturist.”

Still from Nudist Paradise, uncredited, 1958 (pictured, top)
“This is simply a inactive from the archetypal British diagnostic movie to see naturism. It was changeable astatine Spielplatz, a 12-acre Hertfordshire campy that took its sanction from the German connection for playground, successful honour of the movement’s Germanic roots. Although existent naturists appeared successful the background, the film’s stars were nonrecreational actors.”

This modern Sunbathing Venus of to-day … Photograph: Courtesy of Hawk Editorial Ltd

This Modern Sunbathing Venus of Today …, uncredited, 1936
“Sunlight was being utilized to dainty TB, rickets and different disorders, truthful determination was a cardinal communicative astir the bully that sunbathing mightiness bash for carnal and intelligence wellness if you afloat exposed your body. The occupation was that determination aren’t galore sunny days successful Britain, truthful successful the 1930s indoor nudism emerged arsenic a applicable solution.”

Jean Straker astatine the Visual Arts Club. Photograph: David Hurn/David Hurn/Magnum Photos

Jean Straker, Soho, David Hurn, c1960
“Straker (pictured, middle) opened his Soho workplace successful the aboriginal 50s. He clashed with constabulary for selling nude images with disposable genitalia, nether the guise of artistry and of providing elaborate views of women’s bodies for technological research. He became an improbable figurehead successful late-60s campaigns against censorship.”