| Vol. II #46 · October 14, 2002 "SPEAK," "MEMORY" According to recent issue of GAYTIMES (London, UK), there was a lavish exhibition of the photographs of RAY BLAKEY at a London gallery. Blakey is an American; he grew up in Enid Oklahoma. As a child, he was smitten with the skating of screen star Sonja Henie. He had no ice rink nearby, so he became a championship roller skater. While serving in the US Army in Germany in the early 50s, he joined an ice skating show. Back in the US, he performed in a Holiday On Ice company and studied photography. He retired from performing in 1967 and dedicated himself to his photography. In 1972, he published HE , a book devoted exclusively to male nudes. It was considered daring. Other books of nudes had appeared before, of course, but the male nudes were always published with female nudes. Blakey had his studio above Billy's Topless Bar on Sixth Avenue and started photographing celebrities. He placed an ad in the Village Voice seeking men to pose nude, and he had a regular stream of guys climbing the stairs. One was Cal Culver (a/k/a Casey Donovan) with whom he wound up sharing property on Fire Island. ROY BLAKEY'S 70s MALE NUDE has collected the best of his work from that sexually-advanced decade. (A friend, a retired college professor, told methis was a few years agothat his university offered history course about the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 80s. Nothing about the 70s. Wonder why.) Blakey captures a look and an attitude from a time when so much changed in male photography. He's 72 now and still going at it. | |
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