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Male Nude with Scales
This striking studio photograph presents two male figures in a sculptural arrangement, with one standing in profile holding a large scale while the other crouches beneath it in dynamic tension. The composition evokes classical allegory and ideal male form, rendered through Lynes's masterful use of chiaroscuro lighting and precise studio control. Created during the postwar period when Lynes was at the height of his artistic practice in New York, the work exemplifies his sophisticated approach to the male nude as a vehicle for exploring beauty, balance, and symbolic meaning. The gelatin silver print demonstrates the photographer's technical virtuosity and his ability to transform intimate studio sessions into monumental artistic statements. This photograph reflects Lynes's broader project of documenting queer male desire and physicality with unprecedented artistic dignity and formal sophistication.
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Spotted At
- Online · homocommunist.xyz
Notes
From the curated 'George Platt Lynes's Male Nudes' aggregation at homocommunist.xyz. Source page: https://homocommunist.xyz/george-platt-lynes's-male-nudes
Collectors with works by George Platt Lynes
Artists in conversation
George Hoyningen-Huene
Russian-American · b. 1900
Hoyningen-Huene worked in the same mid-century fashion photography world as Lynes, producing elegantly composed images for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar that blended classical aesthetic sensibility with surrealist influences and a refined homoerotic undertone in male figure work.
Horst P. Horst
German-American · b. 1906
Horst shared Lynes's circle and aesthetic language, producing surrealist-inflected fashion and figure photography with dramatic sculptural lighting, classical compositional elegance, and a sensual treatment of the male and female form that closely mirrors Lynes's signature style.
Herbert List
German · b. 1903
List produced surrealist-influenced black and white photography of male nudes and classical figures with the same combination of literary sophistication, avant-garde sensibility, and openly homoerotic gaze that defines Lynes's most celebrated work.
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