'Nudism in a Cold Climate' book review
A revealing look at photography, power, and contradiction in mid-century British naturism
Annebella Pollen’s book Nudism in a Cold Climate: The Visual Culture of Naturists in Mid-20th-Century Britain was not what I expected it to be. I’d heard it was good, but for some reason, I thought it’d be mostly photos with just a little bit of historical context thrown in. Shortly after cracking it open in the bathtub I was quickly and happily proven wrong. This book is a deep, in-depth historical look at the magazines published by British naturists from the 1920’s into the 1970’s, a roughly fifty year period, noting the social changes that took place and how the magazines responded to (or ignored) those changes. It’s a focused and fascinating look at a significant period of nudist history.
Pollen is not a naturist herself, and she is up front about this in the book’s opening. If that’s the case, then why would she study fifty years of nudist publications and write a book on the subject? As she states, her primary interest is in photography: amateur and professional, as well as its place in British culture, from cheap magazines to fine art galleries and everywhere in between. Photography has always been an important element of communicating naturist ideals, and its place within the broader culture of nude photography is extremely interesting, an angle that’s not often approached outside of the tired “art versus pornography” arguments that are also discussed here. Pollen also states, “I can read these mid-century nudist publications as intended: many address the skeptic and the novice to persuade the reader that the movement is legitimate.” She adds, “as a woman, analyzing images intended for a heterosexual male viewer also gives additional perspective on what is and is not shown.”
This unique perspective is what makes the book so strong. As an outsider, Pollen approaches the subject of nudist photography in ways that I myself am just not used to reading from the nudist community itself. While the book is filled with familiar imagery, she provides much needed context for them, a context that we never really consider as we find and share these images online.
One of Pollen’s primary focuses is on the bodies displayed in the photographs. Most of the images weren’t of actual nudists, but of young female models. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise considering the open knowledge that Doris Wishman and other exploitation filmmakers had the same practice for their nudist movies, but Pollen takes into consideration how these photos were used to promote the movement, and how they would (or often wouldn’t) fit with the articles in the pages of these publications. She highlights how these photos hardly represented the nudist community, which has always been predominantly male and older than the young women seen posing outdoors. The majority of the writers for these publications were also male, as was their audience. These photos weren’t just picked at random, they were all chosen for a purpose, even if it didn’t quite fit the naturist credo.
It should come as no surprise that most of the photographers behind these images weren’t really nudists either, but professionals who found a good source of revenue. Pollen points out multiple times how photographers sold their work not just to nudist publications, but to fine art publishers and galleries, dirty magazines, and anyone else who would pay, especially when nude photography started to boom. The same photos presented alongside an article about clean health in a nudist magazine could also appear in a book of erotic artwork. Context is important, and with photography that context is hard to grasp, frequently ambiguous. It’s also interesting to note how these largely Puritanical nudists who hated glamour photography, burlesque, and pornography, forever stressing the separation between nudism and more risque or sexual nudity, ultimately had to work with people in those other fields. More and more nudists are expressing support for sex workers nowadays, especially with the knowledge that our rights are intertwined, so it’s fun to see examples of how connected we all have been.
This critical eye that Pollen brings in examining such a large body of work is what impresses me the most. There’s almost a savagery to how she points out so many contradictory elements within these publications and the movement itself, as well as highlighting arguments that are still going on today. On top of the photos in these magazines hardly aligning with the articles they accompanied, the use of children without question of consent or exploitation, and the bizarre beauty contests that clubs would hold, the contradictions go further: advertisements in between the articles and in the back of magazines were often for ways to improve your strength and appearance, clothes (sometimes including things like lingerie), and thinly veiled erotic art books. It’s interesting to note that even readers of these publications thought things were off, and would write in to express their frustrations. Writers and editors pointed out, with maybe a touch of regret to their words, that without these ads, and without model photography, there would be no real way to get these publications out to the general audience they were trying to reach.
While they aren’t the real focus, the photographs shared throughout the book are well chosen and help to articulate what Pollen has to say, especially about what bodies were shown and what bodies weren’t. The models are, as one would expect, predominantly young, able bodied, conventionally attractive white women. Many photographers were focused on idealized, classical proportions in their models, as nothing else would sell. Men are hardly featured and when they are, they are photographed in a particularly different, more heroic way because again, this is a heterosexual male audience these publications were aimed towards. Despite there being at least a few prominently queer nudists, sexuality was an oft-avoided issue. When people of color are shown in these magazines, it’s in a very othering and racist way, discussing the differences between their bodies and white bodies and referring to these darker skinned models as savages. This is something you also see in certain nudist documentaries like Elysia, Valley of the Nude, which I pointed out in my review, so to see Pollen call it out in this book is great.
There is also of course the topic of censorship, and how things became more and more relaxed over the decades. Among the photos in this book is a side by side example of a censored and uncensored shot, showcasing how the model’s pubic hair and genitals were airbrushed out. It’s photographer Horace Narbeth, better known as Roye, who fought against this censorship with his own work, pushing the boundaries and challenging laws in court successfully. Again, Roye wasn’t a nudist, he was one of those aforementioned photographers who, being commercially savvy, was able to sell his work to a variety of publications and beyond, appearing everywhere.
I’ll show you my favorite photo in the whole book though, a rare picture of a young woman in 1945 who had just fallen, with a hilarious look of shock on her face:
If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend Nudism in a Cold Climate for how insightful and informative it is, as well as how unflinching it is in its criticism of these publications and the movement of the time. It’s strange how relevant it all still is today. If I have one thing to nitpick about the book it’s how the photo credits are hidden away in the back of the book, so I had to frequently search to find out where and when the photos were originally published, and that’s just a personal preference overall. My hope is that in the future Pollen may present us with a follow up concerning the next fifty years of nudist publications! 🪐
Annebella made good use of the archives held by British Naturism and was a delight to work with. She is genuinely open and interested in the ideas and beliefs that naturism is based on - this is a much needed review of naturism in twentieth century Britain.