Like the farcical “nudie” sexploitation films that he pioneered with works such as “Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill!” or “Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens”, and which have a large, almost cult-like following, Russ Meyer’s photographs perhaps represent a certain time of playful innocence and an aspect of popular culture that now seem to be lost. Photography was a separate activity from his filmmaking. Well known for his obsession with large breasted women, Meyer (who died in 2004) was early to take color pin-up photos for pulp “glamour” and girlie magazines and was among the first and most prolific Playboy centerfold photographers. Just as he became an idiosyncratic, but influential filmmaker, his photographs helped define a genre in the iconography of sexuality.
From Los Angeles Magazine, June 2000Russell Albion “Russ” Meyer *1922 Oakland, + 2004 Los Angeles was an US-American Director, Play-writer and Producer. He became famous through his bizarre, cheaply produced Soft-Sex movies. His Pin-Up photographies are to be seen at VAN HORN for the first time in Germany.