This delightful book of musclemen of yesteryear is both entertaining and educational for any historian of bodybuilding and the male body in art. Long before Bob Mizer captured hunky specimens in the buff, artists like Townsend were persuading handsome young men to strip and strike a pose. The early attempts at bodybuilding were pretty lumpy affairs, sorry, Sandow does not do it for me, but things get better with the debut of Townsend and his dreamy images of the athletic frame of Tony Sansone. The really good news is that early bodybuilders felt comfortable being photographed fully NUDE and this book is worth buying for these shots alone. The men are not the hard bodied gym freaks of the Arnie era, they are 'boys next door', which gives the photos a period charm. These classic studies have a cute, naive feel, with atmoshpheric light and thankfully, several images have escaped the airbrush to reveal the men's assets in all their glory. You have permission to pour over these stunning images of male nudity and you will find yourself drooling, hero-worshipping and marvelling at the pioneering skills of the early masters of the male nude in ALL its glory! These men would not past muster today as athletes, bodybuilders or pin-ups, but they make a refreshing and highly entertaining contrast to today's endless images of o-so-cute boyish east europeans.
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