A Moral Legacy in Vintage Pinups: The Klaw Archives

Perhaps the names Paula and Irving Klaw don’t conjure up the same cultural gravitas of Bettie Page, the mid-century pinup legend who stood as a bold yet all-American antithesis to 1950s sex-phobia. But the Klaws are crucial to the story of Page and her contemporaries. In an era of censorship wars and sexual hypocrisy, illicit material had to be viewed surreptitiously. The Klaws helped lay the groundwork for an erotic industry while fighting critical legal battles for sexual freedoms.

Starting March 12, a collection of vintage and unadulterated pinups from the Klaws will go on view at No Name Cinema, a fiercely independent microcinema and exhibition space committed to the experimental and avant-garde.

“They’re neat time capsules of both the era and the initial, limited, and discreet method of distribution of this type of material,” says No Name Cinema founder and exhibition organizer Justin Clifford Rhody. “Exhibiting them by hanging them on a wall is taking them out of their original intended context, which was for private, personal viewing.”

While their work didn’t feature nudity, the Klaws pushed boundaries with overt themes of bondage, fetishism, and role play.

“You were likely considered more of a pervert for wanting to see this material rather than images of standard heterosexual intercourse,” says Rhody.

The Klaws—siblings, not spouses—began their business modestly in 1938 with a used bookstore, which they quickly pivoted to selling Hollywood glamour shots and lobby cards. Through an organic, entrepreneurial evolution, the Klaws came to be the producers behind some of the era’s most recognizable and important erotic pinups, providing the material to private, wealthy clients. Paula’s contributions became central to their ongoing success as she assumed the role of both director and photographer. She also continued the business long after Irving’s death in 1966.

“I’m not interested in these images as burlesque or fetish ephemera,” Rhody notes. “Taken out of their context after 70 years, they’re not even that pornographic. No more-so than your average television commercial.”

Out-of-context is precisely where Rhody finds their charm. His curatorial tendencies lean toward the found photographic object; the re-contextualized, or appropriated image.

“I sift through thousands of, let’s say, old tourist photos to find the ones slightly off, ones that have a compositional framework that’s more interesting in a fine art context,” he explains.

In the case of the visually redundant, rapid-fire Klaw archive, Rhody sought out the images that showcased “those off-moments that wouldn’t necessarily reach publication, where the model was staring back at the camera with either a knowing, annoyed or bored gaze.” This was work, after all.

“There are peripheral elements, things that may have been cropped out,” Rhody continues. “You can sometimes see beyond the bondage equipment and notice a domestic setting, like a kitchen with some old beer bottles on the stovetop, for example.”

Rhody also noticed other “slightly odd elements” in the images, “like women who had huge or multiple pairs of underwear on, which I didn’t understand at first.”

The Klaws took great care to avoid pornography charges between their discreet business practices and attentive care in depicting models; while provocative, their images avoid graphic depictions of sex, and the visible, multiple layers of underwear stand as proof. Still, unfortunately, such meticulous efforts were often not enough to evade the law, and the Klaws’ photos came under the harsh scrutiny of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1957, when Paula, under pressure from the court, was forced to destroy the work to avoid charges of sending pornography through the mail—most of which featured their favorite collaborator, Bettie Page. Thankfully, she secretly saved a portion of the negatives.

“Paula hiding and preserving those images in what likely was an incredibly stressful situation goes to show how even when being beaten down, she was confident that what they were doing was not wrong. Her actions say ‘there’s value in these,’” Rhody says. “Irving Klaw went before the Senate and pleaded the Fifth Amendment until he was held in contempt of court. I read that for the rest of his life he’d clip out images of BDSM-like material he found in mainstream, popular culture because he wanted to prove that he never did anything wrong.”

Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be until much later that either Paula or Irving would be considered anything close to revolutionary, sex-positive or progressive. Due to their efforts to not be regarded as pornographic, the Klaws’ work is, of course, considered tame by modern standards. Further, what is known of their business practices would hold up well to modern standards, too: At the very least, the Klaws are said to have treated their consenting, self-made models respectfully and much better than other pinup photographers, with anecdotes from Page that include great pay, no harassment and an amiable social relationship.

“A present-day parallel might be something like kink.com, known for prioritizing ethics and consent in their workplace,” says Rhody.

While we can only rely on hearsay and the remnants of a mostly lost archive, the legacy of the Klaws remains largely positive. Still, such charged imagery is bound to divide some viewers, even today. Perhaps the printed program featuring commissioned essays from artist, writer and educator Courtney Fellion of the San Francisco State University School of Cinema and Albuquerque-based writer and artist Delaney Hoffman will help contextualize the exhibition.

“They have the potential for multiple and valid readings and perspectives that are all open. I think, possibly, it has the potential to help us in the unpacking of our own hangups within social mores,” Rhody says. “I’m interested to see what the kind of response will be.”

Klaw: Vintage Prints from the Photo Archive Opening: 6-9 pm Saturday, March 12. Free (but you can always donate). No Name Cinema, 2013 Piñon St., nonamecinema.org