Bettie Page: Bondage Queen

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Irving Klaw began selling pin-up photos in the 1950s, many of which featured the legendary Bettie Page. When he began to receive requests from his customers for images of girls in what would today be considered S & M and bondage situations, he complied. Making 16mm films out of his own home featuring Bettie and other glamour girls of the era, Klaw created an oeuvre which today's fetish material continues to reference. Much of this work was burned when Klaw was accused of purveying pornography, and the films collected here are rarities not previously available. Surreal and strangely innocent, the films and photos are obviously staged in someone's basement, while the fetishwear--not widely attainable in those days--was mostly homemade, lending the work an immediacy and tender intimacy not to be found in similar, more contemporary, films.