Talented Pioneers of Photography, and Cousins

Here a sampling of Pluschow’s work is followed by von Gloeden’s.

Guglielmo Plüschow (born Wilhelm Plüschow; August 18, 1852 – January 3, 1930), was a German photographer who moved to Italy and became known for his nude photos of local youths, predominantly males (but also females). Being the cousin of Wilhelm von Gloeden, who, despite taking up nude photography later than Plüschow, soon overshadowed him, Plüschow was several times at odds with the law and charged with corruption of minors. Today, his photography is recognized for its artistic merits, even though it is generally considered somewhat inferior to von Gloeden’s on account of his less graceful handling of lighting and the sometimes strangely stilted poses of his models.

Not much is known about Plüschow’s early life, except that he was born in Wismar as the eldest of seven brothers and sisters.

In the early 1870s, he moved to Rome and changed his first name from “Wilhelm” to its Italian equivalent “Guglielmo”. Initially making a living as a wine merchant, he soon turned to male and female nude photography.

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One of Plüschow’s more famous models was Vincenzo Galdi (pictured above), who was probably one of Plüschow’s lovers. Galdi later became a photographer in his own right, as well as an art gallery owner.

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Wilhelm von Gloeden

Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (September 16, 1856 – February 16, 1931) was a German photographer who worked mainly in Italy. He is mostly known for his pastoral nude studies of Sicilian boys, which usually featured props such as wreaths or amphoras suggesting a setting in the Greece or Italy of antiquity. From a modern standpoint, his work is commendable due to his controlled use of lighting as well as the often elegant poses of his models. Innovative use of photographic filters and special body makeup contribute to the artistic perfection of his works.

Famous in his own day, his work was subsequently eclipsed for close to a century, only to re-emerge in recent times as “the most important gay visual artist of the pre–World War I era” according to Thomas Waugh.

Von Gloeden claimed to be a minor German aristocrat from Mecklenburg. Suffering from what appears to have been tuberculosis, he came to Taormina, Sicily in 1876. He was wealthy, and also scrupulously shared the proceeds of his sales with his models, providing a considerable economic boost in this comparatively poor region of Italy, which might explain why the homosexual aspects of his life and work were generally tolerated by the locals.

In total the Baron took over 3,000 images, which after his death were left to one of his models, Pancrazio Buciunì, also known as Il Moro for his North African looks. Il Moro had been Von Gloeden’s lover since the age of fourteen, when he had first joined the household of the Baron. In 1936, over 2,500 of the pictures were destroyed by Benito Mussolini’s police under the allegation that they constituted pornography. Most of the surviving images therefore come from private collections.

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Related posts:

1. Wilhelm von Gloeden
2. Male Photography 1940s & 50s
3. Philip Gladstone’s Extraordinary Art