JK Sitting

JK Sitting gathers the vintage photographs of John Kayser, an unknown California photographer who spent decades photographing nude women seated on pies, cakes, fish bowls, cats and vegetables. It was an obsessive private practice that stayed out of sight until after his death.

Designed by Peter Miles and published in a numbered edition of 400 copies, the softcover book reproduces Kayser's staged studio and street pictures, made in and around Los Angeles through the 1960s and '70s, largely without commentary beyond the images themselves. The project came to light only through the photographs Kayser left behind rather than through any exhibition or publication during his lifetime.

Little biographical information about Kayser survives; he worked as an amateur, using his own house and the streets of Los Angeles as sets, and made no attempt to exhibit or publish the pictures collected here. JK Sitting, produced by Peter Miles Studio in association with Steidl, remains the only book to bring this body of work into circulation.