European Tits & Arse by André Bélorgey
One of the daunting things with European photographers is the lack of information available on the Internet. André Bélorgey (1925-2009) shot for Paris-Hollywood in the 1960s alongside Serge Jacques and Roland Carre; he co-authored Studio Album No. 8 (Nouvelle Serie) with Serge Jacques and Roland Carre; he co-authored Etudes Plastiques with Roland Carre and K. Yoshikawa; and André Bélorgey authored his book Striptease: Des Annees 50-60. The information trail pretty much stops short there.
My current thinking on this consistent lack of information about guys like André Bélorgey, in contrast to the Americans or the Brits, is the differing history around photographic eroticism and pornography within different cultures. Even though Paris-Hollywood pushed the envelope, I don’t think these guys were really noted as social deviants. Perhaps in their time and place the erotic photographers and soft pornographers of the day were really no more special or interesting on the whole than any other photographer doing a job for money. Which is sad because I’m interested in who Bélorgey was and what influenced his work. I don’t own any of the books André Bélorgey authored/co-authored, nor am I likely to be purchasing them in the near future (except by luck) and I’m not even sure anymore where I picked up his dates for birth and death. They could be totally wrong and that should be noted.
However, like Serge Jacques and Roland Carre, the work of André Bélorgey is out there being appreciated. They all shot lovely nudes from an era where many of these photographers exhibited great style and taste.
