John Coplans

Coplans worked as a painter, writer, editor, and curator and had several false starts as a photographer. In 1984, at the age of sixty–four, he hit upon what would be his exclusive subject for the rest of his life—his own naked body. Over the course of twenty years, Coplans published some twenty books of photographs of his body, including volumes devoted to pictures of his feet and his hands. None of them shows his head.
Before he made his photographs, Coplans used a video camera operated by an assistant to record various poses to see if they were what he wanted. In designing his poses he drew on his long and varied life experience (in addition to his work in the arts, he fought in World War II) and especially on his extensive knowledge of the history of art. This included painting, sculpture, and photography, from ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art to blunt twentieth–century photographs by Weegee, plus a full awareness of contemporary abstract art and performance art. Although the masculinity of Coplans's pictures continues to be somewhat shocking (it is the naked female form that dominates the history of visual art), it is their depiction of his aged body that is most provocative. In this photograph he balances on one foot, a strong yet vulnerable figure in an ersatz frieze.