It is rare that one actually sits down to read a book about male nude photography. Except, of course, when the author is Reed Massengill. His works are always entertaining, expressive and nuanced. And I’m not talking about his own photography which is developing an increasingly broad fan base. It’s as a curator that he redefines and illuminates the genre. Massengill has become a prominent advocate of its history, consistently producing homages to unsung photographers of the past. His eye is unfailing. His taste impeccable. And his expertise in all aspects of technique, substance and documentation remarkable. While most admirers of the male nude are content to merely collect and/or display photographs, he delves deeper, ferreting out the facts of their creation, investigating the lives of those who made them, and in many cases, restoring reputations.

Recently I attended a launch party at the Leslie-Lohman Gallery for Reed’s new book: Uncovered: Rare Vintage Male Nudes, published by Universe (part of the Rizzoli family). The space, lined with exquisite photographs by the likes of George Platt Lynes and Plato, was packed with collectors, models, artists, writers and aficionados of the male physique. Among the participants was the photographer Vulcan, making a rare appearance, having traveled a great distance to be there. It was a very special night.

Later when I cracked open the tome and began to read it, I was impressed by the wealth of knowledge that the author brings to the subject. It’s easy for a fan of this branch of photography to simply focus on the images, waxing poetic about the magical moments (and models) these pictures capture, or the extraordinary care with which the photographers composed their “studies.” But Massengill’s forte as a writer, editor, connoisseur, and champion, is his devotion to the world surrounding these photographs. He’s a critic of range, subtlety and diverse knowledge. His biography of Byron de la Beckwith, the white supremacist murderer of Medgar Evars, Portrait of a Racist, was considered for a Pulitzer prize. His monograph Massengill Men is considered a collector’s item. Likewise his more recent titles: Self-Exposure: The Male Nude Self-Portrait and The Male Ideal: Lon of New York and the Masculine Physique.

Uncovered is another in his series of compilations, exposing a new generation to the work of yesterday’s masters. The key to Uncovered is its unveiling of nearly lost treasures. Many of these images were secreted away for a generation in private collections and closed archives. The majority have never been published.

As hinted at in the introduction by Victor Skrebneski, many of these images were close to extinction due to censorship, homophobia, and paranoia. Some of the finest talents at work in the 40s and 50s were hounded by the police, investigated by the Postal Service, chastised by their peers, ignored by critics, bowdlerized by copy-cats, abused by employers, or merely neglected and ultimately forgotten. In some cases, many of the photographs, the book states, “were surreptitiously passed around from friend to friend, hidden in flat metal cookie tins, or slyly filed away in mundane-looking album binders.”

It took the dedication and passion of serious devotees to unlock those drawers, rescue those albums before they were tossed into the dumpster, or in some cases burned. When George Platt Lynes suffered a setback in his career as a fashion photographer, Alfred Kinsey helped him out by buying his lesser-known and, in some cases secret, male nudes. Today they rest at the Kinsey Institute. Likewise, the Harry Ransom Center, which purchased a collection of Lynes’s work. (”Tex” & “Buddy” by Lynes, below.)

Included in this revelatory book are works by celebrated photographers such as Earle Forbes, Don Whitman, Frederick Kovert, Al Urban, Plato and John Barrington. Uncovered also unwraps two lesser known, equally intriguing, figures whose work was never sold commercially in their lifetimes: Robert Galster and Antonio Arabia, below.

There are over 100 photographs in this volume, many seen for the first time anywhere. One of the biggest surprises here is the imaginative work of Vulcan, the only one of the photographers in the book who is alive. Still using his pseudonym, this photographer deserves much more acclaim. For my money, his portraits are timeless, breathtaking, and redolent of a lost era of masculine grace and symmetry. (Duo by Vulcan, below.)

His classically-inspired images rank right up there with the best of George Platt Lynes and Bruce of Los Angeles. For readers who are more drawn to the models than the photographers, there is plenty of eye candy in this new book. Steve Wengryn is immortalized here by three distinct photographers, Don Whitman, John Barrington and Vulcan. There are stunning glimpses of Tony Sansone by Earle Forbes, Andy Kozak by Kovert, Joe Cali by Plato, Rick Wayne by Barrington, and the legendary Harold Lang by Vulcan. And plenty of lesser known idols worth a second look (Tommy Mathias, below, by Don Whitman.)

It seems hard to believe now, in 2009, that many of these images were once considered vulgar and obscene, and a violation of common decency. Even more difficult to wrap our heads around is the fact that people went to jail for merely possessing them, rather than producing them. One thinks of the noted critic Newton Arvin, a professor at Smith College, and lover of Truman Capote’s, who was disgraced when a collection of relatively innocent physique photography was found in his apartment. Today he’d be on Charlie Rose talking about the joys of the art form. We’ve come a long way. But perhaps not far enough. I’m not able to post some of the more explicit images from this book here on my blog without risking its being banished to the adult section of Google’s blog services.

If you want to see the full story, buy the book here. It’s called Uncovered for a reason. It’s a real page-turner.