Born in Germany in 1856, Wilhelm von Gloeden was a master photographer before the turn of the century. His most notable work was that of young boys photographed in Sicily.
His natural and emotional images have rarely been mirrored since.
He found himself in the right time and place; the people of Sicily were not of a mind to feel threatened by his work, nor did they object to the nature of his photography. In this day and time our moral sensibilities would be all a twitter; i.e. I thought the sky was falling after that split second glimpse of Janet Jackson’s nipple.
Of the 3000 plus photographs taken by von Gloeden, some 2500 did not survive WWII fascist Italy. The police, during the Mussolini era, deemed them pornography and destroyed them.
