The full-face mask was a fetish inspiration." Richard Perez, Stanton's biographer, says Spiderman creator Steve Ditko shared a studio with Stanton in the 1950s, and credited Stanton with Spidey's full-face mask. One of Stanton's creations made it onto drug store racks, though. The bookstores that carried these novels were protected by organized crime, according to Hanson. Four cover paintings a month paid Stanton's rent at a flat in Manhattan in the mid-60s. After making a name for himself as a fantasy-artist-for-hire in pulp magazine ads, he was commissioned by booksellers Stanley Malkin and Eddie Mishkin to illustrate sexploitation novels. Stanton's illustrations were sold under the counter in Times Square. Batters' models were not merely Playboy bunnies trying on shoes he often photographed them performing lesbian sex acts. "The Sneaker World of Elmer Batters," "Leg Language," "Thigh High" and "Skirts that Flirt" were magazines sold through mail order in the 50s and 60s. Photo: Chris Greenspon)īatters self-published his photos, by necessity. (Caption: In the mid-60s, Eric Stanton illustrated hundreds of sexploitation book covers. Batters apparently realized he had a foot fetish on board a submarine, discovering he was the only sailor who liked feet more than the other parts of a woman's body, Hanson says. Illustrator Eric Stanton's thing was "big, strong women who would wrestle him down to the ground," Hanson says.īoth men were World War II veterans. Photographer Elmer Batters was obsessed with women's feet. "Something that symbolizes sex that becomes the center of your sex life." "A fetish is a substitute for 'natural,' procreative sex," says Taschen Publishing's Sexy Book Editor, Dian Hanson. (Caption: A billboard advertises Taschen's latest show at the corner of Beverly and Crescent Heights boulevards. The image is the perfect emblem for Taschen Gallery's new fetish art show, "Bizarre Life - The Art of Elmer Batters and Eric Stanton" (link NSFW). Over 200 original works by the pair are being exhibited together for the first time by TASCHEN Gallery, Los Angeles.Warning: This content contains adult themes and may be considered NSFW (not safe for work).Īt the intersection of Beverly and Crescent Heights in Los Angeles, there's a billboard of a topless woman adjusting her stockings, her toes curled over her car's dashboard. A champion of strong women, his female dominance illustrations showed men getting their just desserts at the mercy of powerful and authoritative women in an age that was still to acknowledge feminism as a movement. Ever since watching Famke Janssen’s Xenia Onatopp nearly strangling James Bond to death with her thighs in GoldenEye (I’ve always thought that would be among the best ways to be murdered), Stanton was way ahead of his time on the topic of punitive face-sitting. Eric Stanton’s niche, on the other hand, is altogether more palatable. For someone who is staunchly anti-feet his work is hard to swallow, but each to his own I suppose. “The Dean of Leg Art” (possibly the worst ever nickname?) was lauded for his innovative presentation of this particular kink, but the conservative American courts were less impressed by the explicit nature of his photography, labelling it “dangerously perverse” and constantly trying to find grounds to prosecute. Photographer Elmer Batters was to become the doyen of foot fetishists everywhere. Elmer Batters and Eric Stanton were two such figures liberated by their military experiences otherwise destined for careers as a commercial photographer or illustrator respectively, they made it out of the war alive and emerged into the new world with a determination to follow their artistic noses, wherever it may lead them. There’s nothing like a near death experience to make one throw off the shackles of convention and embrace one’s true self, and the Second World War was that catalyst for a generation of artists.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |