Artist Aroused
This article is only a portion of the full article. If you are already a premium subscriber please login. If you are not a premium subscriber, please subscribe for access to all of our content.

The Flamboyant Life and Forbidden Art of George Quaintance
by Reed Massengill
Edited by Dian Hanson
Taschen. 156 pages, $99.99

FEW ARTISTS, even those of great fame or historical importance, receive such magnificent treatment in a published monograph as George Quaintance (1902-1957), painter of beefcake images from the 1940’s and 50’s, receives in this volume. Known mostly to bodybuilders and physical culture fans of those decades and to legions of gay men of the pre-Stonewall years who were starving for images of hot men, Quaintance’s paintings graced the covers of many now-classic physique magazines. Today, his images tend to be regarded as icons of high kitsch.