Eroticism and Photography in 1930s French Magazines: Risque Shop Windows

Drawing on a panorama of materials from 1930s France, Eroticism and Photography in 1930s French Magazines takes a new approach to studying a certain type of image from a certain type of time.

Previously untapped by historians, magazines such as Paris Magazine, Paris Sex Appeal, Pages Folles, Pour lire a deux and Scandale are inscribed in the context of the interwar years. They reflect that context through a bawdy style, audacious and multifaceted aesthetic - from kitsch to modern - and a permeability to reproducibility. With a focus on the photographs as components of the magazines’ layout, Alix Agret critically examines their interrelations with texts and graphic, without neglecting the history surrounding them, which forms a backdrop to the analyses of this previously unstudied source material. The first study of its kind, this is a timely scholarly contribution to the field of the history of photographs.

This book will be of interest to scholars in the field of history of photography, French history, and twentieth century art history.