Serge Jacques

It is part of Taschen's policy to celebrate the infamous and the notorious -- rebel artists who have had to constantly struggle against the rigid morality of the censors and the law. French photographer Serges Jacques is a case in point. His groundbreaking nudes in the 50's were deemed obscene because he revealed his models' pubic hair. He Faced countless arrests, blacklists, and regular raids on his studio and darkroom. Like other mavericks of the time, he continued his mission in the Face of adversity, and continued to photograph and publish the legendary French pin-up magazine "Paris -- Hollywood". For Jacques, "Hollywood" was a state of mind, an imaginary landscape of the erotic imagination, where everybody's sexual preferences were given Free rein. Painstakingly, Jacques recreated the details of these Fantasies within the privacy of his studio -- building papier-mache sets, posing the girls on beds of pretend snow, and dressing them up (and undressing them) in decorative lingerie. Kitsch,amusing, and still provocative, this is an excellent compilation of Serges Jacques' finest and, under the circumstances, bravest work.