Marilyn Chambers 1975 Camera Negative Miami Cocktail Party One Of A Kind Photo
Item History & Price
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Grapefruit Moon Gallery is "over the moon" to announce the acquisition of the extensive, detailed, and comprehensive estate of photographer and pin-up model Bunny Yeager. Described as "the world’s greatest pin-up photographer" by Diane Arbus, and best-remembered for her iconic collaborations with Bettie Page, Yeager’s body of work includes over five decades of spectacular, and groundbreaking celebrations of female beauty.
Yeager’s archive includes thousands of never-before-seen and many unpublished camera images of leading glamour and cheesecake models, unique camera negatives & transparencies, photographs, contact sheets, original model costumes, props, cameras, model release forms, technical notes, as well as displays and exhibition mounted large photographs from her Miami showroom. Yeager’s work is both groundbreaking and technically brilliant; one of the only female photographers working in the pin-up and nude genres, she captured the female body with a beauty, strength, power, and emotionality unparalleled by the leering lens of many of her male contemporaries.
Keep a close eye on our auctions for one-of-a-kind treasures from the estate of Bunny Yeager.
ITEM: You are bidding on a 120 millimeter black and white Kodak safety camera negative photograph showing the lovely Ms. Chambers in a posed candid moment presenting guests with a penis shaped party pizza to honor a new hair salon opening in Vegas at the time aptly named Big Johns Hair Salon... Taken at a swinging cocktail party in December of 1975, which featured a near nude Marilyn Chambers as the cocktail waitress. Bunny who attended the party shrewdly got Chambers to sign a photo release and shot her at the house where the party was ending in varying states of dress and complete nudity.
Negative measures about 2 1/4" square a positive image of the negative is shown below the watermark does not appear on the actual film negative.
Shown below only for reference but NOT included in this auction of the camera negative is a typed and signed letter to Oui Magazine dated December 5, 1975 as the shrewd commercial photographer tries to monetize this evening as a newsworthy event in for the front pages of the magazine. The letter content is extraordinary and gives you some idea of the tenacity of Yeager as transcribed below images. Also a signed model release form (NOT included in sale).
The letter reads:
Attention: Picture Dept, Here are some photos I took at a cocktail party this past Weds., Dec. 3rd.
Marilyn (Behind the Green Door) Chambers served drinks all evening in the nude except for a tiny sheer apron. There were about 40 or 50 people there.
The party was at the home of John L. Eakins, better known as "Mr. John" who has a hair styling salon in Miami. He will open a salon in Las Vegas soon and Marilyn will be handling the PR for it. Marilyn is soon to appear in a Broadway show and is to make a new movie very shortly. She was in Miami to consult Mr. John on what kind of hairdo she will wear for the B. show.
One of the highlights of the evening was Mr. John presenting a pizza to Marilyn...it was shaped like a penis and on it was written: "Is this big enough for you, Marilyn? Love, John"
I thought maybe you would like to use one of these photos for the little newsy section in the front part of OUI.Thanks for looking,
Miss Bunny Yeager
CONDITION: This auction consists of a black and white negative which shows Marilyn Chambers presenting a penis shaped party pizza of sorts... shot by Bunny Yeager at a 1975 Cocktail Party. In excellent carefully archived condition - from the estate of Bunny Yeager.
Guaranteed to be 100% vintage and original from Grapefruit Moon Gallery.
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For this listing only, Grapefruit Moon Gallery represents that the original camera negative/transparency ("Original") comes with United States copyright. The buyer is solely responsible for ascertaining that the Original is otherwise cleared for publication including but not limited to satisfying any publicity right that persons appearing in an image may have under any statutes or common law. Grapefruit Moon Gallery makes no representation or warranty as to any matters that need to be cleared prior to publication. No representation or warranty is made regarding copyright outside of the United States. All publication issues should be referred to the buyer's own professional advisors.
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From Queen of Miami to The World’s Greatest Pinup Photographer: The Biography of Bunny Yeager
In the late 1940s, a teenager named Linnea Eleanor Yeager rechristened herself Bunny, after a character played by the femme fatale Lana Turner. The choice was one of the first indications Yeager had her pulse on what was considered the height of female glamour, and her decades long career as a model and pin up photographer would see her join Turner as one of those who defined American female beauty in the 20th century.
Statuesque and with a beaming smile, Yeager began entering beauty contests shortly after moving to Florida at 17. She enrolled in modeling school, and signed to Coronet Modeling Agency upon receiving positive attention during her six-week training. She won many of the pageants she entered, and was crowned Miss Trailer Coach, Sports Queen, and--most fittingly--Queen of Miami. The colorful titles suited her, and her early modeling work shows her vivacious personality, and ideal 1950s curves.
Not visible in the images though, was Yeager’s relentless drive and creativity. Rather than paying photographers for the many prints she needed to get her name in front of scouts to book jobs, she decided to take darkroom photography to develop her own pictures, and began learning how to use a camera.
On assignment for this class, she took the Marilyn Monroe look-a-like Maria Stinger to a local wildlife park (where she would later return to shoot one of the most enduring pin up images of Bettie Page, flanked by cougars), and ended up selling the work for use as the March 1954 cover of the girlie magazine Eye.
It was clear Bunny Yeager had found her path.
1954 would prove to be a transformative year for Yeager and pin-up photography as an art form.
She was approached by Bettie Page—at that time known primarily to the fetish community as the whip wielding dominatrix who enthralled Irving Klaw—but was eager to break through to more traditional figure and pin up modeling. Page was on vacation in Miami and approached Yeager as one of a few photographers she thought might be able to capture a different side of her.
The first photos Yeager took of Page showed the model nude in Yeager’s family home beneath a Christmas tree in Santa cap. The shoot established a working relationship between the pair that defined both women’s careers, and raised their profiles significantly.
Yeager sent the photos to Hugh Hefner, who offered her $100.00 for the image. “Nobody had heard of Hugh Hefner” she told an interviewer. “But I figured because they were new they might pay attention to an amateur, and that’s what happened…If I hadn’t have made that early connection when he was just starting out, maybe I wouldn’t have got such a big push, but immediately I became employable.”
The first issue of Playboy hit the stands in December 1953, and it the bar for artistry and naturalism in nude photography magazines. Yeager and Hefner would go on to work together off and on for much of her career.
Her association with Playboy opened doors for Yeager and she became a celebrity and curiosity during the 1950s. US Camera dubbed her “The World’s Prettiest Photographer” and she appeared as a guest on shows like “What’s My Line” and “The Tonight Show.”
Not only was she a female pin-up photographer, by the end of the 1950s she was a mother of two, married to Arthur “Bud” Irwin who she met at “The Tip Toppers Club: a social gathering for the vertically blessed.”
She was also starting to be recognized for her incredible mastery of technique. Yeager’s command of fill flash technique, her pioneering use of the outdoor settings that abounded in Miami, and the innovative techniques she developed to create her many self-portraits all reverberated through the world of glamour and fine art photography, and her influence can be seen in the work of luminaries like Cindy Sherman and Yasumasa Morimura.
Famously, Diane Arbus once called Yeager “the world’s greatest pinup photographer, ” and the more than 30 books published about her work testify to that assessment.
Yeager became so influential through her commitment to her artistry and to detail. "I always looked at my work as an art form and not a job, ” Yeager once said, and she seemingly was never satisfied unless she was pushing up against the boundaries of what was considered possible for her as a woman, a working mother, and an artist.
She designed and sewed many of the outfits worn by her models, tried her hand at acting and filmmaking, and remained a relevant and talented photographer throughout her over 50 year career.
Though when she first picked up a camera in the early 1950s, cheesecake photography was considered taboo and prurient, she lived to see her work shown in fine art galleries worldwide.
The first major museum exhibition of Yeager’s work was held in 2010 at the Andy Warhol Museum.
Bunny Yeager died in 2014 but her popularity only continues to grow.
Currently, two documentaries about Yeager are slated for release in 2019 and a scripted TV-show based on her life is in the works.
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