Rodeo

Rodeo collects a lesser-known body of work by Bruce Bellas, known as Bruce of Los Angeles, one of the most prolific photographers of the male physique in mid-century America.

Curated by photography critic Vince Aletti and published by Acne Studios in 2013, the 190-page hardcover reproduces Bellas's pictures of rodeo cowboys — bronco busters and bull riders photographed off duty, resting and joking between events at Western rodeos of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. Bound in faux leather with a printed slipcase and issued in a numbered edition of 500, the book includes several pages of hand-mounted replica prints produced on a Japanese Komori press, a production choice echoing the small-format prints Bellas once sold by mail order.

Bellas built his career, and a large mail-order business, photographing bodybuilders and physique models for magazines such as Adonis and The Male Figure, work that helped define the visual language of American beefcake photography and, later, the codes of gay visual culture more broadly. Aletti, a longtime chronicler of photography and fashion, singled out the rodeo pictures for their unguarded, documentary quality, a register distinct from the staged, statuesque nudes for which Bellas is best known.