Eugen Sandow

It's been years since I devoted and entire series to the great Eugen Sandow, so let's do it today.

We start with a grainy photo of him standing on a leopard skin working a dumbbell.

I promise you the quality gets much better going forward in the set.

 

Younger?

Is it just me, or does Mr. Sandow look younger in this photo than many?

 

Stark Lighting

The stark lighting here seems to work.

 

Hercules Rear I

There are several hand-tinted color photos of Eugen Sandow circulating online.There are also 

some fake modern re-dos, but I think this version of Hercules and his club is original.

 

Warwick Brooks

Mr. Sandow posed for Warwick Brooks of Manchester, England in 1895.

 

Movie

This movie is from the Library of Congress film collection.

Mr. Sandow looks simply magnificent.

 

Benjamin Falk

Benjamin Falk took this and at least one other reclining photo of Sandow.

 

Hercules Rear II

The club Herr Sandow is holding again harkens to the Classical Hercules motif.

 

Sarony

New York photographer Napoleon Sarony is generally regarded as tops when it came to capturing images of Eugen Sandow.  This isn't even the best example, but it is one I haven't yet posted.

 

Looking up

Ending with another fig leaf photo of Eugen Sandow looking up.

 

Dave Martin Day

The last time I did a full Dave Martin series, I used photos shared with us by Bryan B.

Today's come from my own collection, starting with this one of Bud Counts,

one of those models who never seems to have made a bad picture.

 

Sanford Alcorn

Although I could do without all the oil, I still like this picture of Sanford Alcorn.

 

Jim Hamilton

A wooded area near San Francisco was the setting for this photo of Jim Hamilton.

 

Mark Peterson

I've seen this model listed as both Mark Peterson and Paul Swenson.

Either way, he looks pretty impressive.

 

Fred Jensen

Dave Martin posed Fred Jensen squatting on a very rocky slope.

Fred looks happy to be there.

 

Bob Miller

It's one arm up and one arm down in this photograph of Bob Miller.

 

Gary Dexter

This hunk scouting the horizon is Gary Dexter.

 

Pete Lee

Here we see Pete Lee walking toward us with fists clenched.

 

Carl Wadlow

The tan lines draw our eyes to Carl Wadlow's midsection, not that we need any help.

Also, that bamboo screen appears in a number of Dave Martin's best photos.

 

Gene Stanley

A classic bayside location frames Gene Stanley in our final photo of the day.

 

Military Day

Military men are on the agenda for today, and we begin with some 

unidentified  fellows enjoying a bath and a swim.

 

Verdun

Even men in the living hell that was Verdun got an occasional break from the fighting.  

This happy Poilu is enjoying a swim at the sluice gate of a mill pond.

 

Inductees

I don't have a date or location for this photo of American inductees showering.

The beefy guy at left got my immediate attention.

 

Sick Call

These are Austro-Hungarian soldiers from a sick call being sorted at a hospital in South Tyrol.

 

New Guinea

A large fallen log in a New Guinea river is being used as a platform for doing laundry by one GI while another gives himself a bath nearby.  A closer look at Mr. Clean is below.

 

Field Engineers

These guys are Wehrmacht field engineers reparing a blown bridge on the Eastern Front.

In summer, the men were happy to strip and work nude, but one wonders 

what they had to do in the brutal Russian winters.

 

Combination

I think this is another combination of getting a bath and recreational swimming.

 

New Guinea II

This is the same New Guinea log we saw earlier,

but I think the men are different.

 

Hut

These are Germans from World War II, and I think the hut is a sauna or bathhouse.

 

Any way you can

As my uncle who served in World War II as a combat infantryman put it,  "In the middle of a war, 

you'll get a bath any way you can."  This GI is using a jerry can and his helmet.  

Note the laundry drying in the background.