Jonathon Delacour the heart of things

A nude group sculpture

In an act of pity for all those poor surfers who end up on his site looking for nude photos, Jeff Ward published some gorgeous daguerreotypes from the 1850s. Inspired by Jeff’s example, I’m offering one of my favorites: the jacket photo for a book called New Japan: A Chronicle of Starting Over, a collection of documentary photographs taken from 1945 to 1970 (many of which appeared in Mainichi Graph, the Japanese equivalent of LIFE magazine).

Thirty Beautiful Women’s Bodies

The caption inside the jacket reads:

Thirty Beautiful Women’s Bodies
This large nude group sculpture, which originally appeared on the cover of the 1955 New Year’s edition of Mainichi Graph magazine became a hot topic of conversation. An epoch-making event in magazine journalism, the picture was composed by Hara Seiichi and photographed by Nimura Jirō.

You can click on the photo or on this link to see a large (190K) version of the image. No group nudity phobia here, though suggestions as to the significance of the red and yellow scarves would obviously be welcome.

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