- Written by: Ken Furtado
A reader in France discovered these two videos on a site called Dailymotion, which appears to be very similar to the US site, Instagram. They were posted in 2013 by a fellow calling himself swimguynunu. I am not a user of Dailymotion, so I can’t provide any information about swimguy, and his videos offer no clues.
Swimguy has created two video montages of paintings by George Quaintance, and set them to music. Links are provided, if you want to check them out.
Cowboy Bathers (about 5 minutes)
Please send an email if you can add any info about swimguynunu, or if you are swimguy!
- Written by: Ken Furtado
In 2023, several Quaintance lithographs and an early oil painting appeared at auction.
The oil painting was offered in August: a signed canvas of a voluptuous, provocatively posed female nude, titled Summer's Day. The painting measures 24 by 24 inches and, according to the listing, is inscribed on the stretcher.
The January 1939 issue of the Chicago-based Picture and Gift Journal contained an article about Quaintance that claimed, "George Quaintance is the originator of the 'glamour nudes,' who have all it takes to knock 'em dead from San Diego to Bangor, from Miami to Seattle."
Today, Quaintance fans might wonder what he was talking about. The nudes for which Quaintance is remembered are male nudes, and if there was a body of work of female glamour nudes renowned from coast to coast in 1939, it is now largely forgotten.
Summer's Day sold at auction previously, in 2007, for $4,000. That listing gave the painting's date as 1940. The 2023 auction did not mention a date. The painting sold for $3,000, far below the pre-auction estimate of $4,000 to $6,000.
Then came the lithographs, many of which are becoming increasingly hard-to-find. Nine Quaintance paintings were reproduced as full-color lithographs during his lifetime. At one time, the entire suite could be purchased from the studio for $25!
An October auction offered a copy of the Siesta lithograph and, separately, a set of four beautifully framed lithographs of Rodeo Victor, Bacchant, Baths of Ancient Rome and Spartan Soldiers Bathing.
Siesta sold for $425 against a pre-auction estimate of $300-$500. Along with Preludio, it is the largest of the Quaintance Studio lithographs, measuring 17.5 by 22.5 inches. But it is not especially scarce. Copies pop up regularly on eBay and at auction. On Aug. 22, 2024 (may be past tense when you read this), examples of both Siesta and Preludio will be auctioned by the Swann Galleries. For this go-around, the pre-auction estimate is $1000-$1500 each.
The other four above-mentioned lithographs are much scarcer. Print size is 11 by 14 inches for Rodeo Victor and Bacchant, or 14 by 11 inches for Baths of Ancient Rome and Spartan Soldiers Bathing. They could once be purchased as a set for $9. At this auction, they sold as a single lot for $1,000, dwarfing the pre-auction estimate of $200-$300.
I will be writing more about Quaintance's lithographs in a future entry, and will also report on the 8.22.2024 auction results at that time.
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- Written by: Ken Furtado
Three books have been published about George Quaintance, not counting the 2014 ebook.
The first — although not chronologically — is a version of the biography I co-authored with John Waybright. In the end stages of John's life, in 2013, a friend of his paid to have about 20 paperback copies of our book privately printed. It was to be a birthday surprise for John. The finished book was about 6x9 inches, 142 pages, and had several glossy plates, some of which were in full color.
That friend's accomplice, however, acquired an early, uncorrected and incomplete version of the manuscript. John passed away before he saw it, or knew about it. (Thank goodness!) I have a copy and I hope that no one else does.
The second book, The Art of George Quaintance, appeared in three editions, all with different covers and slightly different contents.
In 1989, Volker Janssen of Janssen Verlag (Publishers) published The Art of George Quaintance in an edition of 1000 copies. It has a pale blue cover featuring Spartan Soldiers Bathing. The text is in German. At that time, Janssen owned several works by Quaintance, so he exhibited them at his gallery in Berlin. Hoping to sidestep any possible copyright issues with the Quaintance estate, he used that exhibition as a pretext for including photos in the book of every one of Quaintance's known paintings of the male physique era.
As Janssen explained in an email to me, "I had the opportunity to purchase some rare original Quaintance paintings and photographs, and as a result the first Quaintance exhibition finally took place in Berlin, in 1989. The first book of his work, The Art of George Quaintance, was published, and it became the catalogue for the show."
In cooperation with the publishing house Bruno Gmünder, a second edition of 2,000 copies of The Art of George Quaintance was printed in 1990. It has a yellow cover with the image of the kneeling boy hugging a donkey that also appeared on the cover of Physique Pictorial and as a greeting card.
A third and final edition was printed in 2003. It has a full-color cover depicting Sunrise, an original canvas that Janssen owned at the time, on the front cover. One thousand copies were printed. All three editions were oversized (9x12 inches) paperbacks; there were no hardcover editions.
The third Quaintance book is the full-color, hardcover, coffee-table book, Quaintance, published by Taschen in 2010. I wrote the descriptions and commentaries for the paintings in that book. Today, copies in good condition routinely sell for many times the original price of $100. There was only the single edition and the number of copies printed is a trade secret.
What's curious are the extremely high prices being asked for the Janssen books at booksellers and online sources (e.g., Amazon and eBay). All three Janssen editions are not particularly scarce, and copies are not hard to find. Are buyers and sellers confusing the Taschen book with the Janssen book? Sellers routinely interchange the titles: you may see the Taschen book called The Art of George Quaintance and the Janssen book referred to as George Quaintance or Quaintance. Just recently I located a copy of the Taschen volume offered for $100 and a 2nd edition of the Janssen book offered for $625! Happy hunting.
Everything on this website is free. If you enjoy reading these articles, please consider making a donation to help defray the costs of hosting and domain registration. The "Donate" button will get you started. Thank you.
- Written by: Ken Furtado
An unusual photograph from Quaintance's male physique period sold on eBay, April 18, 2024. The title was "Trail (sic) by Combat Men Knife Fighting Art Picture Quaintance."
The photograph was an original black and white photo of the canvas Trial by Combat. Online images showed the correct studio imprint and other information. It was typical of the thousands of black and white photographs produced by the Quaintance Studio in its heyday, measuring about 8x10 inches and printed on heavy stock. Slight age discoloration and some rippled edges added bona fides.
But lo, the two central figures — and a murderous looking yucca — are in vivid color. The listing gives no explanation for this, nor does it indicate whether the seller knew this was an oddball item.
The photo sold for $50.
This is not the first instance I've seen of the Studio's b&w photos with color added, but this is the first that added color selectively, rather than to the entire image, and the first to use vivid non-watercolor ink or paint. Other colorized images used watercolors in pastel washes that sometimes bled into the margins, such as this example of Morning.
The burning question is: who added the color? It seems that new ways of misusing and abusing the Quaintance estate continue to emerge. According to US copyright law, works created after 1923, but before 1978, are protected for 95 years from the date of publication. Enforcement, however, requires that someone is minding the store.
Everything on this website is free. If you enjoy reading these articles, please consider making a donation to help defray the costs of hosting and domain registration. The "Donate" button will get you started. Thank you.
- Written by: Ken Furtado
I have William Butler Yeats to thank for the title of this article, which has nothing to do with George Quaintance.
If you visit here often, you have noticed that the site has been inactive for about a year. Blame technology.
At the end of 2022, I was notified that my content management system (CMS) — the backbone on which the site is built — was outdated. In addition to requiring an update, the entire site needed to be moved to a new server, capable of handling the new CMS. I hired a person to do that who, working with my web host, moved and updated the site. Somehow, they wrecked it.
The web host was useless and helpless. One by one, I engaged different people to fix the problem, but $2000 and several "fixes" later, it became apparent that it was easier to make promises than to deliver on them.
So, I sent a cry for help to the universe using Craigslist. It drew nearly 100 replies. Having no basis for knowing who truly knew whereof they spoke, I retained the first person who replied. More wasted time, money and energy. Screening the other replies, I emailed or texted a few who seemed more promising. Got the brass ring with John!
Now I have an updated CMS, a bug-free site (fingers crossed), and a new web host. I can finally resume posting articles about the guy you came to hear about, George Quaintance. This image of him from a 1953 magazine ad seemed appropriate to illustrate this article.
In the meantime, there has been a dearth of new information about Quaintance since Covid hit, so if you have stories to tell or images to share, please direct them my way.
BTW, making a donation is a great opportunity to help defray the costs I've incurred in keeping this blog alive. As it says elsewhere, all parts of this site are free and I derive no income from it. There's a "Donate" button at the right and you can use Zelle, Venmo, or Paypal. Thank you.
- Written by: Ken Furtado
Admirers and scholars of George Quaintance should also direct their attention to one of his contemporaries: artist Christopher Clark. I have written about Clark before (link). His male physique work is notoriously scarce and all-but-unknown (but it is gorgeous)!
In January, an original Clark oil painting was offered at auction: a bust of a young man with the top of his shirt unbuttoned. The painting is signed and dated, "Christopher Clark Miami 1938." The canvas measures 18 by 26 inches and the frame 24 by 31.5. It is shown here with the permission of the auction house, Lion and Unicorn. The winning bid was $2400.
The auction listing provided more information about Clark. After leaving his native Florida, he studied art and theater in New York, then returned to Florida. Details of his work there, including exhibitions and prizes won, can be found in Alfred R. Frankel's, Artists of Old Florida 1840-1950, which compares his work to that of Thomas Hart Benton. The entire book can currently be downloaded free at https://artistsofoldflorida.com.
The listing goes on to say that Clark was close with automobile magnate Walter Chrysler Jr., and that he curated Chrysler's collection of old Dutch masters.
Chrysler provides a direct link to George Quaintance. Walter P. “Freddie” Chrysler Jr., was the scion of the founder of the great American automobile manufacturing company, Chrysler. Though twice married, Freddie’s homosexuality was an open secret. He and George reputedly had an intense affair. Freddie was famous for giving his boyfriends lavish gifts, and George got a 20-foot convertible — a testament to how allegedly hot he was as a lover and boon companion.
About that gift, Rev. Robert W. Wood (another of George's lovers) wrote, in a letter to Durk Dehner of the Tom of Finland Foundation, "George told me that Walter P. Chrysler Jr. had given a white 4-door Chrysler convertible to him. As you may know, at one time Chrysler Jr. was the 'belle' of Provincetown, and was known for his generosity to his boyfriends." George exulted in driving around his hometown in this convertible with his boyfriends, which proved somewhat disconcerting to the neighbors.
Glenn Bishop, a hugely popular physique model of the 1950s, provides another link between Clark and Quaintance, as they both painted him. Clark's portrait of Bishop is shown here. Quaintance's painting of Glenn Bishop is based on a photo taken by Bob Delmonteque, both model and mentor to Clark!
Clark passed away suddenly at his home in Tampa, on July 2, 1973 at the age of 70. If you know more about Clark, please write to me.
Thank you to Steven Kozlowski for providing information for this blog entry.
Everything on this website is free. If you enjoy reading these articles, please consider making a donation to help defray the costs of hosting and domain registration. The "Donate" button will get you started. Thank you.