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| Cas - Hustler |
The 1960's artist Cas was an omission from my original A-Z series on fetish artists which seems unwarranted in retrospect. This image, one of his better known, probably explains why I left him out. The hustler clad in skin-tight leather pants has a splendid muscular body but Cas has depicted him as a coquettish vamp right down to the way he is holding his symbolically smouldering match in a pose worthy of Marlene Dietrich.
It's not a look that grabs me erotically but I suppose I should have appreciated that Cas is emulating Marlene's deliberate, bold assertion of female sexuality and strength that completely debunked the 'little woman' conventions and restraints of her era. Cas's hustler is likewise mocking the stereotyping of gay men by owning and flaunting it. He oozes (almost literally it seems) self assurance and confidence. If you cover his face, the depiction of his muscularity is probably the most erotic in all of Cas's work.
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| Cas - Aperitif |
In this brilliant picture, Cas flips the coin, poking fun at gays who adopt a façade of rough, butch-ness but cannot hide their self-consciously cultivated, inner-selves. This biker is a visual treat for leather lovers. He is beautifully drawn, casually sprawling across an antique chair, in torn, dishevelled clothes with unkempt hair and stubbled cheeks projecting an image that promises rough and dirty sex. There's a cleverly disguised outline of something big in his pants. However, his delicate cigarette holder and tiny glass of aperitif, reveal him to be highly refined. The shoulder-ribbons suggest he's something of a dandy too.
You can also take this to be an Eliza Doolittle scenario where a tough is being taught manners by a man of a 'higher station' in life. That was not an uncommon experience for gay men back then. By necessity, they met anonymously in public places - toilets, discreet gay bars or clubs - where they were equally likely to meet a plumber or a professor, a rich man or a poor man, a young man or a pensioner, a soldier or a ballet dancer.
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| Cas - Director's Cut? |
Humour runs through much of this artist's work but it's not without it's harder edges. It was commonplace in this era for actors to strip off and be chained up in 'sword and sandals' films. In this jokey take on that, the hapless, aspiring actor suddenly imagines that his role is about to be played out for real. That wouldn't really be funny at all - but it is sexy predicament.
The label to the left of the captive's foot says 'Intolerance Scene 1724', as though part of a long list of additions to DW Griffith's epic 1916 film, on the subject.
It's ironic that the sadism of Christian story-telling and imagery has for centuries provided a cloak of legitimacy for homoerotic art that explores the darkest forms of desire.
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| Cas - Laundromat |
The 'mitchmen' blog has visited the laundromat scenario a few times recently (see Art of Oztangles 5 , 'Laundry Day' image for links) but you might be surprised to learn that Cas beat Nick Kamen to it by about 20 years. It's another wry dig at the 'butch biker' image of course but he's done it by taking a common, semi-clad, beefcake magazine pose and dropping it into a real world setting where the erotic implications of the residual cap and boots are enhanced and can ferment in the pants of imaginative viewers.
The oppressive restrictions of the day deterred him from suggestively showing another man in the image, although a cartoon woman or women registering some sort of comic response, like that in a 'saucy' seaside postcard by McGill would have probably have been perfectly OK.
Smoking cigarettes features in many of his pictures. In those days it was a near-universal practice, often characterised as masculine and expected of you if you wanted to fit in.
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| Cas - Roughhouse |
This image shows the sort of scenario that might have been triggered by that innocent, laundry image. Ostensibly a dramatic wrestling scene it's pretty obvious on further inspection that this man is being enthusiastically helped out of his jeans by the other two. They are both essentially naked as far as we can see, leaving the strong suspicion that his underpants will ultimately go the same way but it's left to us to imagine why. The wooden boarding at the back and the cap and boots worn by one of the combatants look rather like sea-faring imagery and since posting I have stumbled across a copy of this drawing labelled equally clearly as being by Holzmann, part of a series called 'Merchant Navy'. I am still looking into whether they are aliases for the same person.
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| Cas - Bar Fight |
Fight scenes were a legitimate way of showing men interacting in a highly physical manner with their inadvertently ripped clothes exposing sexy flesh. Cas here seems to rely more on the ambiguity caused by relatively featureless, skin-tight clothing. A scattering of playing cards provides a simple excuse for the argument if not the extensive semi-nudity (strip poker doesn't usually get this heated)!
The scenario is a blank canvas for placing men in close proximity to one another in all sorts of undignified states which is exactly what Cas has done. The careful juxtaposition of bulging crotches, rounded backsides and phallic bottles do the rest.
This image contains an (Heavenly) host of hidden eroticism. At this time of year I'm tempted to ask readers how many they can spot! The most notable for me is the champagne glass held aloft, as if to an
optic in a bar, poised to catch the produce of the bulge directly above. The man holding it is distracted by a curvaceous ass emblazoned with the Cas logo in a way that accentuates it's shape, like a tattoo.
Cas could not have imagined that magazine staples would make an eyewatering S&M addition when the image was published. Or am I underestimating the cunning of the artist - or the magazine editor? It is a very curiously precise, vertical alignment after all.
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| Etienne - Bar Brawl |
Etienne also did a bar-room brawl around this time, with sailors. It's a simpler, more fragmented composition but offers a more direct sensuality with the use of colour accentuating the revelatory effect of ripped clothing. There is one notable 'hidden' erotic reference, however, in the pair of sailors far left who could be construed as enjoying a hand job. Etienne's men are remarkably handsome and adult (I love that dishy blond on the floor!) but they are arguably less real and less varied than those of Cas in the preceding picture.
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| Cas - Balancing Above |
Cas loved to depict tight jeans which was the most legitimate way for a man to dress sexily in those days. The biker jacket slung across naked shoulders was a classy embellishment - 1960's cool if you like. Around this time there was also a fashion for low waisted trousers with tiny zips and this picture seems to reflect that trend. Cas, like
Oztangles, was abreast of what was fashionable. The upwards looking viewpoint accentuates the effect of the tight jeans and suggests a dominant personality.
This is an exceptionally well-drawn image, breezing through a tricky perspective.
*Compare with Etienne's skewed bar room perspectives
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| Cas - Tights |
Although I'm not fond of the way Cas drew eyes, this picture seems very sexy to me with a pugnacious, insolent face (which might have been a prototype for
The Hun's trademark blond convict) set atop a muscular torso (glimpsed through an open shirt) and patterned tights that accentuate thick thighs.
This isn't so much a portrait as a vehicle for erotic characteristics. The patterned tights seem to be those of a circus performer but the sword and distant seagulls point to him being a pirate. These two professions were blurred together of course in the swashbuckling movies of the day starring ex-circus performers like Burt Lancaster - in tights.
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| Cas - Gardener in Ledehosen Shorts |
The half-dressed gardener is the
mitchmen brand image and has been the suggestive, saucy background decoration of numerous adverts and film scenes, most of which post-date this image.
The clothing of this young man accentuates his physique in a similar way to that in the tights picture above. Here too the open shirt looks as if it is being pulled tight by something hidden inside his shorts. The tattered sleeves are augmented in this image by a tear on one shoulder but are completely missing on the other revealing hairy arms (another brawler?).
He has deliberately turned up his leather shorts, far more than seems necessary for doing his job, but accentuating his hairy thighs and flaunting his masculinity. The prominent pouch does the same job even more directly. He stands, hand on hip with a serious, pouty face, looking like a rebellious teenager whose just been told he's got to do an extra hours.
You might prefer to see him as confronting someone out of the picture, warning him not to try and interfere with that tempting flap.
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Cas was a regular contributor to beefcake magazines in the 1960's but he hasn't acquired the same lasting fame as his contemporary, Etienne, although he was arguably a better draftsman. Etienne had a canny eye for the commercial and played safe with his characterisations, he was also bolder with his subject matter. For all his sharp satire Cas stays within the tradition of innuendo and hidden artifice.
No direct link for Cas I'm afraid, but there's lots of his images to be unearthed at Tim in Vermont
