Five-Thousandth Post

To celebrate my five-thousandth post to the blog, I selected this self-portrait of Alonzo Hanagan aka Lon of New York posing with his photograph of John Grimek.

Of course, Lon is one of the great physique photographers, his images available for purchase in nascent bodybuilding magazines as early as the 1930's.

Because the possession and distribution of photographs of nude adults were illegal in the United States until about 1969, Lon was frequently harassed and prosecuted by law-enforcement officials. Most of his archival material was lost to him while he was still alive, as noted in this post on the blog.

John Grimek worked much of his life to popularize around the world bodybuilding as both a sport and healthy lifestyle.

Lon's spectacular photographs of Grimek certainly helped give rise to and propel the interest in beefcake: the widespread popularity of viewing male beauty purely for the pleasure of it.