Bruce Harry Bellas

At the end of the 1950’s, Bruce Harry Bellas (1909-1974), better known as Bruce of Los Angeles, had emerged as one of the leading photographers of the eroticized male body. Born in Alliance, Nebraska, Bruce began careers in chemistry and teaching, before moving to California in the early 1940’s, where he worked as a freelance photographer, documenting bodybuilding competitions.

By the late 1940’s, he was a staff photographer for Joe Weider's bodybuilding publications and spent much of his time traveling to bodybuilding contests across the United States. His photographs appeared in such magazines as Strength and Health, Muscle Power, and Tomorrow's Man.

In the mid-1950’s, Bruce began publishing his own magazine, The Male Figure. Critics agree he is the forbearer to both the sexy aesthetic of Bruce Weber and the razor sharp elegance of Robert Mapplethorpe. His vintage beefcake magazines and photographs are nostalgic and hot – these men are manly men and in extraordinarily shape, particularly since they hail from the decades before the widespread use of steroids and other body enhancers.