Taschen Gallery Celebrates Fetish Art in 'Bizarre Life' Show

LOS ANGELES—With titles like Big Book of Butts and Big Book of Pussy in its catalog, Taschen is a publisher well known to fans of erotic art. So it was welcome news when Taschen opened up an art gallery in December. And this week a noteworthy exhibit is coming to the Los Angeles exhibit space, which is located on Beverly Boulevard near Fairfax.

Bizarre Life – The Art of Elmer Batters and Eric Stanton is an exhibit that, as a Taschen press release states, “traces the artistic struggle of two pioneers of fetish art from the gritty post-war streets of Times Square to their position today as cultural icons.”

“If not for the moral chaos of World War II, Eric Stanton and Elmer Batters might have sublimated their indecent obsessions and spent lives illustrating catalogs, or photographing weddings,” the release states. “But after the clarifying effect of near death, each embraced his difference, and returned home to hack a heroic creative path through contemptuous and villainous publishers, multiple arrests, loss of family, and occasionally, freedom, to be who he had to be.”

An inspiration for artists such as Richard Lindner, Allen Jones and Helmut Newton, Eric Stanton created panel stories and pulp fiction covers of voluptuous, demanding women overpowering uppity males. “A woman has to be strong. The bigger the better” was his motto.

Elmer Batters was dubbed the Dean of Leg Art for his approach to photographing women’s legs and feet—an obsession that made him a hero to legions of foot fetishists, but also caused him to be branded as “dangerously perverse.” Batters has said, “I felt that people almost saw me as un-American for not mooning over large mammaries.”

In more than 200 original works Bizarre Life showcases these artists together for the first time. The exhibit is curated by Dian Hanson and Benedikt Taschen in collaboration with Richard Perez.

Taschen has previously published books about both artists. Elmer Batters (1919-1997) is the subject of two books from Taschen. Batters first became aware that his sexual tastes were different from his shipmates while serving as a submarine crew member during World War II. Following his discharge he married his first leg model, settled in Rancho Palos Verdes, and made a career photographing women with an emphasis on legs and feet.

Eric Stanton (1926-1999) was born in Brooklyn and served in the Navy during World War II. In 1948 he began drawing “fighting girl” serials for the infamous Irving Klaw and spent the next 50 years creating fetish illustrations, serial stories and pulp paperback book covers in pen and ink, watercolor, gouache and multimedia collage. He famously shared a studio with comic legend Steve Ditko and assisted in the creation of Spider-Man. He is also the subject of two Taschen books.

The exhibit runs March 27 through May 24 at Taschen Gallery is located at 8070 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Call 323-852-9098 for information.

Pictured above: Left, Untitled 6 (1974) by Elmer Batters; right, cover art for A Lesson in Eros (painted in 1964) by Eric Stanton