Bob Mizer's Spartacus Exhibition Opens at JW Anderson Soho

JW Anderson Soho in London has launched an exhibition of 40 illustrations by Spartacus, a pseudonym for Bob Mizer, the pioneering publisher of Physique Pictorial. The works, privately owned by Mizer, are on display until July 6. Mizer, born in 1922 in Hailey, Idaho, founded the Athletic Model Guild in 1945 and launched Physique Pictorial in 1951, the first all-nude all-male magazine. He was convicted in 1954 for distributing obscene material through the mail but continued his work after a 1968 Supreme Court ruling legalized sexualized nudity. The magazine ceased in 1990, and Mizer died in 1992. In 2017, the Bob Mizer Foundation relaunched Physique Pictorial, with president Dennis Bell noting the magazine's influence on artists like David Hockney and Robert Mapplethorpe. The exhibition celebrates Pride and Mizer's legacy in gay visual culture.