X, Monsieur. Untitled. Paris, c. 1925–35.
Silver gelatin print; image and print size 240 x 180 mm; numbered ‘X52’ ‘44’ ‘018’ in pencil in different hands to verso; some creasing to edges of print; unframed in window mount 390 x 260 mm.
Historic print from the elusive early photographic pornographer, Monsieur X.
During the 1920s and ‘30s, Monsieur X produced a startling body of erotic and fetishist photography. Intended only for personal consumption, Monsieur X paid Parisian sex workers to pose for him in a brothel at 75 Rue Jean-Batiste Pigalle. These women often exposed themselves to the camera, while posing in guises as the subject is in this photograph. In 1975, the octogenarian photographer sold his entire oeuvre to a Parisian book dealer chosen for his discretion and expertise in erotica. He then threw the original glass negatives into the Seine; yet there still exist several thousand gelatin silver prints in this format.
See Dupouy, Collection privée de Monsieur X, 2007.
SKU: 2125811