?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(CHAMPION STUDIO--WALTER KUNDZICZ)
A set of 35 color photographs of scantily clad models with bulging posing pouches and sexy props. Including Jim Stryker, Joe Parr, Ubi Cruz, Rob Roy, Mike Pohl, Jim Novak, Joe Wild, Walt Covert, and others. Chromogenic prints, the images measuring 120x83 mm; 4 3/4x3 1/4 inches, and the reverse, the sheets slightly larger, each with Kundzicz's signature in ink, and all but three with the model's name and image number either written or stamped, on verso; six with the additional stamp "A Reference Photo for: Artists and Physical Culturists," and four with the "Property of Waljim Entrs, Inc." stamp, also on verso. 1963-1964.
Under the name Champion Studio, Walter Kundzicz became one of the last great pioneers of physique photography when he entered the field in the late 1950s. Unlike the muscle-bound beefcake imagery of earlier the decade, Champion's handsome young models were a new breed. Not only did Kundzicz push legal boundaries with sexier props and more revealing imagery, his color photographs also pushed the established aesthetics, featuring sunny, youthful models in everyday settings, beautifully capturing a new era on the cusp of sexual revolution. These photographs became wildly popular with mail-order customers and collectors because they stood in stark contrast to most of the physique photography available at that time.
