Tag: Aubrey Beardsley

Nawa-art.com: Kitan Club, 風俗草紙 and other publications.

Posted by – June 15, 2011

Ran Akiyoshi, 風俗草紙, September 1953 issue.

Gurote Suku, Kitan Club, August 1954 issue.

Chéri Herouard, Kitan Club, October 1960 issue.

This is a selection of scans of the infamous ´abnormal´/s&m magazine ´Kitan Club´, started in 1947, and many other/rival publications found through the collection of http://nawa-art.com/.
These magazines were richly illustrated, often contained many stories and of course plenty of rope bondage/S&M photography (ranging from amateur home photography to raw guerrilla photography to extremely delicate high productions).
Many great names are associated to it and many great artists have contributed to this magazine to the point of it becoming known as one of the most important publications of it´s genre.
Some of the artists featured are obscure (and difficult to identify like cover artist of 風俗草紙 Ran Akiyoshi, also found at Feuilleton ), but other well known artists like Kazuhisa Hantei a.k.a. “Gurote Suku”, Chéri Herouard, John Willie, Franz von Bayros, Aubrey Beardsley and Takashi Shima are all in there as are many, many others… you name it (because I can´t).

For more info about the publication of Kitan Club, other publications and the people involved there´s an interview on the extensive http://smdetective.blog126.fc2.com/ with (North American educator, author and authority on the art and history of shibari/kinbaku) Master K where he talks about the magazine´s origin and it´s influence:
http://smdetective.blog126.fc2.com/blog-entry-42.html

Also, more text on the origins of Kitan Club has been written by Merzbow/Masami Akita and can be found here:
http://www.bondageproject.com/public/history_e2.htm

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