Al Urban Day, Part 1 - Known Models

Today we have a double feature of Al Urban images, known and unknown.  This guy not only starts part one, but is also said to have started Al Urban's career photographing and clandestinely distributing male frontal nudes.  That's David Asnis who was a men's fashion model when he suggested that Mr. Urban take his work photographing bodybuilders a step or three farther.

 

Whatever happened to . . . David Asnis

Israel David Asnis was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1911, the son of Russian immigrants.  When he was a teenager, his family moved to the Newark, New Jersey area where his father owned a candy and tobacco shop.  By the mid-1930s, Mr. Asnis had taken up bodybuilding while working as a clerk at a brass foundry.  A part-time job modeling men's fashions led to his meeting photographer Al Urban who was just starting his career.  Physique photography folklore has it that it was David Asnis who suggested that Mr. Urban take up male photography full time.  By 1937, photos like the one above of David Asnis began to appear, and the rest is history as they say.

 

1939 Cover

Someone cropped out the name of the other model who appears on this cover with David Asnis.

Mr. Asnis placed in several AAU bodybuilding competitions in the 1938-1940 span.

The "Do You Know Sexual Anatomy" tag line was quite racy for the time, btw.

 

Lonely derriere

I've only been able to find one derriere photo of David Asnis, and here it is.

Known for his amazing abdominals, the rear view isn't too shabby.

 

Autographed

This autographed photo of David Asnis is presumed to be 

by Al Urban, and I can't tell if the trunks are drawn on or real.

 

Brennus the Gaul?

Al Urban, especially in his early years of photography, liked to picture bodybuilders in Classical settings.  I think this is his take on the story of Brennus the Gaul with Asnis as Brennus.

 

Strength and Health

This March, 1940 magazine cover features David Asnis and an article lead-in on "Sex and American Youth."  I'm sure the photos on the cover and inside helped a lot of them get by.

 

1940

In an odd coincidence, I was looking through family photos last night and saw one of my aunts in a head shot where she was posed exactly like David Asnis here.  I guess that was a thing at the time because I've seen others like it, all from about 1940.  She looked good.  He looks better.

 

Mixed message

The style, fonts, and layout of this exercise guide are post World War II, but the photos 

of a young David Asnis look earlier.  As you will see later in today's series, his modeling 

work had staying power and showed up again over the years.

 

Army

David Asnis enlisted in the U.S. Army in January of 1942 in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack.  His war record was mostly lost in a fire in the 1970's and we only have some hospital records left.  He appears to have avoided being wounded, but seems to have been prone to skin infections.  Mr. Asnis' honorable discharge in July of 1945 could indicate European combat experience because the war with Japan was still on, and only heavy European Theater combat vets were being discharged at that point.  David got back into bodybuilding, getting honorable mention at Mr. East Coast 1946.

 

1940 again in 1948

This is an example of the drawn in posing strap that many physique photographers used to try to avoid prosecution.  The buyers would rub off the posing strap and see the jewels.  In this case, there is an added element of interest.  The original, obviously at left, was made in 1940 by Al Urban, and the other one wasn't distributed until 1948.  It is worth noting that the legal environment in the USA turned notably worse in '48.  Mr. Urban mailed the covered version to a magazine publisher in Chicago that year with a letter admitting that the photo was made eight years earlier, but not mentioning the nude version.  My guess is that the recipient knew the "system" all along.  It is also of note that Al Urban thought David Asnis was still a viable sales option at that point in time.

 

Latest photo

I found this undated photo of David Asnis on a website that chronicles mid-20th Century 

bodybuilders.  From the looks of him, he could be in his 40s, which would date it to the 1950s.  

I was able to find two  glowing accounts (1955 and 1968) of Mr. Asnis having appeared as a non-competitor at bodybuilding events where his abdominals were described as amazing for a man 

his age.  I found business directory listings as late as the 1960s for an Asnis Gym that had 

to be his in Irvington, New Jersey where he passed away in 1977 at age 65.

 

Alternating Al Urban, starting with David Asnis

For Wednesday, I'm alternating nude and semi-nude photos of Al Urban, with all but the final two being pairs of the same models.  We start with an unabashed David Asnis and his small one.

 

Asnis, All American Athlete?

Well, David Asnis was a New York men's fashion model, not an all American athlete,

but that didn't keep him from appearing on the cover of a magazine with that name.

Al Urban provided the photo for this edition in December of 1940.

 

I can't do another Al Urban "small one" series without including handsome David Asnis.

It's worth repeating that it was Mr. Asnis, a New York fashion model at the time,

who convinced Al Urban to get serious about photographing male nudes in the late 1930s.

 

This is perhaps the most interesting Al Urban magazine cover.

Somehow, a 1940-ish photo he took of David Asnis ended up 

on the cover of a prominent French magazine in 1961.

Asnis was a New York fashion model who talked Urban into doing nudes of men.

 

David Asnis has shown up in "Small Ones" themes before, but I don't think I have ever posted this Al Urban photo of him.  Click on the label below to learn more about Dave's interesting history.

David Asnis was a New York fashion model who encouraged Al Urban to push the limits of the time with his fully nude work.  I find this semi-nude of Dave quite nice.

I can’t seem to get through one of these “small one” series without a picture of David Asnis, a favorite model of Al Urban who pretty much defines the genre.  Initially a successful New York men’s fashion model, Asnis teamed up with Urban to become a confidante and collaborator in addition to modeling.