In 1880 French artist Joseph Apoux devised an erotic alphabet that some consider to be the Karma Surta of one’s ABC’s.
It was in the early 70’s (1971 to be exact) that a number of Dutch artists got together and devised a similar idea with the Human Naked Alphabet for Avant Gard magazine.
Apparently, the naked alphabet is a thing.
Flashbak magazine has this to say about the images:
Edited by Ralph Ginzburg and art directed by Herb Lubalin, Avant Gard (published in New York; January 1968 to July 1971) was “a thoughtful, joyous magazine on art and politics”. The naked alphabet feature was an addition to Anthon Beeke’s naked ladies alphabet (1968), a protest “against the supposedly ‘dehumanising’ and thoroughly ‘indecipherable’ mechanistic alphabets”.
The nude Belles Lettres is based on the font Baskerville Old Face.
Typography is art.
Currently, the Flashbak Shop is selling posters and stickers of the original letters.
We are not affiliated with Flashbak in any way, we just thought this was neat.
Buy a copy of the illustrated Alphabet here.
