I offer this page as support for my newly acquired opinion that most, if not all of the Ritter Brothers outdoor nudes were taken by themselves, either individually or with timers. The above is a page of samples from a mid-1930s ad place for the brothers' photo sales business. The posing straps were drawn in, and the image at upper left is the same as the preceding picture in today's series. That leaves me with two questions. First, whatever happened to the rest of the full frontals shown here? And second, were those posing straps on the sold copies or erasable by the purchasers?
ReplyDeleteOn the first question, they're out there somewhere, they are numbered in sequence. Too bad the Ritter Brothers did not make plans for an archive, or did they? When they passed did any relatives keep their materials or because of the contents destroyed them? Or maybe sold them to a collector who either keeps it all to himself or maybe the collector passed, and their relatives destroyed them. Who knows. As for the second question I've noticed that some of the Ritter's photos come up for sale and it looks like the photos were never inked over or posing straps painted on them. Perhaps sold au natural or inked over per customer requests. -Rj/IE
As collectors age and pass on, there have been increasing numbers of online estate sales featuring original uncensored physique photos that haven't been available since they were first distributed in the 40s, 50s, and early 60s. Some heirs are discovering that they have inherited valuable collections and are acting accordingly. Others may be throwing them away, thinking they are worthless.
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