British Beef Week, Day 4 - Hussar . . . or is it Royale?

Basil Clavering and John Parkhurst combined their resources and talents to form Royale Studio in the mid-1950s.  For Clavering it was as much a hobby as anything, as he was the owner of a successful cinema chain, Gala-Royale.  Parkhurst's creative energy produced a succession of racy, but legal photos of military men, athletes, and bodybuilders, often with authentic uniforms and props under the Royale brand.  Some works were marketed with the Hussar marque, with chroniclers of the genre saying that Hussar was for military and Royale for the rest.  My experience is that there is a whole lot of crossover, at least in the modern resale market.  Today we look at works labeled Hussar, but for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to tag them all as Royale. 

 

Royale Studio of London, aka Hussar

Basil S. Clavering (1910-1973) founded Royale Studio in London in the early 1950s.  Scrupulously adhering to the restrictive British censorship laws of the time, he produced provocative, but covered homoerotic photos of mainly military types until liberalization in the late 60s allowed more nudity.  As you will see, early Royale work featured skin tight pants, underwear, and uniforms.  Clavering was joined in his business by John C. Parkhurst (1927-2000) as a junior partner, but significant creative contributor.  After Clavering's death, Parkhurst took a different direction with his own photographic work, but diligently conserved the archive of Royale which we can enjoy today.  Our first photo from about 1970 features two men whom we only know to be soldiers thanks to their footwear.  

Royale

Basil Clavering of Royale Studio in London took this one in 1950.

 

Some of you probably know Royale Studio of London for their photos of British soldiers and sailors with skin tight trousers that look like they were sprayed on.  Here we see Peter George in one of Royale's more revealing photos.  They also did a few posing strap numbers.

 

Royale

Leon Coppola and a wagon wheel were photographed by Royale,

making the back cover of Man Alive magazine.

 

This photo is called "In the Gymnasium - Household Cavalry, 1960," and it was prominently featured in a 2019 exhibition of Royale/Hussar work at the Colville Gallery in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

Royale used actual servicemen, and not professional models, for most of their photos.

 

This picture of Peter George was left out of a recent series on Royale Studio,

but I'm including it here to show how skilled that English operation could be.

I find the use of shadow here to be particularly effective.

 

The top hat in this Royale photo seems a bit out of place with his usual themes, 

but the peekaboo underwear doesn't at all.  I suspect that this image may be a bad scan because Clavering and Parkhurst were known for the excellent quality of the prints they distributed.

 

Cops or Military?

I've seen this one listed as both by Royale and by Hussar, and I can't figure out 

if those are cops or military.  The blue outfits don't look RAF to me, fwiw.

 

For some reason I can't figure out, this photo and the kilted soldier series it came from was

 attributed by my source solely to Basil Clavering rather than to Royale or Hussar Studio.

 

Somebody (not me!) made an interesting GIF out of three Royale photos.  In a puzzling mix of thematic elements, we have a soldier in army boots disrobing an athletic type.  They even threw in a jockstrap.

In an interesting marketing ploy, Clavering and Parkhurst marketed some of their work under the name "Hussar," a type of light cavalry original to Hungary, but used in several European militaries.

 

This photo of Earl Maynard is the only full frontal nude in my Royale collection.

 

This is supposed to be a sporting gear themed Royale photo, but it's mainly about bondage.

Unsurprisingly, the guy on the table seems to  have his underwear sprayed on.

 

Tibor and Brian

I love it when they tell you right on the picture who's in it and who took it.

For the nearsighted, it's Tibor Urgay and Brian Lamprill by Royale.

 

Peter

Peter George looks great in this photo by Royale,

an outfit that will get its own day later in the week.

 

Even after  frontal nudity became legal in the U.K., Royale still held

 to their uniform/underwear/athletic fetishist bent as in this photo.

 

Earl Maynard

I recently came across this doubly rare (Black model and frontally nude) photo of Earl Maynard by Royale.  Disclosure:  I removed yellowing and increased contrast to make it more viewable.

 

Ted Gutteridge

Our last picture of the day is Ted Gutteridge by Royale Studio of London.