- from our story 'Writers, Actors, Singers, Stars: Carl Van Vechten’s Iconic Portrait Photographs'

Billie Holiday, Carl Van Vechten, photography

Billie Holiday, 1949.

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Spivs and the Post-War British Gangster Films

In January 1948 the Observer film critic, C.A. Lejeune, made no attempt to hide her disapproving tone when reviewing the Boulting Brothers’ Brighton Rock: “Graham Greene’s savage story about a couple of race-course gangs and their fancy ways with a razor is one of the most brutal things I have seen on the ...

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Photographer Updates Postcards Of 1960s Resorts Into Their Abandoned Ruins

Ephemeral, disposable, they served only one purpose—to let someone know "I'm here. I'm thinking of you" - Pablo Iglesias Maurer ...

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Cock and Balls : A Photo Study of Rock Gods’ Packages In Very Tight Trousers

Famous rock gods liked to show off their little fellas in very tight trousers and budgie smugglers ...

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The Anarchy Tour of 1976

Ray Stevenson's Extraordinary Photos of the Clash and the Sex Pistols... ...

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The Sixteen Pleasures: The Vatican’s 16th Century Sex Guide

I Modi (The Ways) is best known as The Sixteen Pleasures, an illustrated sex guide published by Marcantonio Raimondi in 1524. Based on paintings by Giulio Romano, The Sixteen Pleasures carries the proud boast of being the first work of pornography banned by the Catholic church. For his gross indecency, Raimondi was imprisoned by ...

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The First Naked Kiss On Camera: Eadweard Muybridge, Sex And Murder

Eadweard Muybridge (9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904) was not into smut and eroticism. His rapid-fire sequential photographs of two naked women kissing served to aid his studies of human and animal movement. It was in the interests of art and science Muybridge secured the services of two women, ...

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The 125 Greatest Songs With A Woman’s Name In The Title

Naming a song after a woman has, over the years, become the biggest music cliché ever; however, there’s been a ton of great ones, and is thereby prime fodder for music lists. So, here's the rules: (1) The song has to have a female's name in the title, but not ...

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A Field Guide to the Hammer House of Horror Women

We've presented you before with guidebooks to the women of A Man Called U.N.C.L.E. (The Women from U.N.C.L.E.) and Star Trek (Beam Me Up Totty: The Babes of Star Trek). Now it's time to tackle perhaps the greatest babe catalog of them all: "The Hammer House of Cleavage".... er, ...

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- from our story 'Writers, Actors, Singers, Stars: Carl Van Vechten’s Iconic Portrait Photographs'

THE FLASHBAK SHOP

Uncommon Christmas Cards now in the shop

Prints – shop our unique art

Editor’s picks

Collect our postcards

Free Newsletter

Shop our unique T-Shirts