Annebella Pollen
Los Angeles: Atelier Editions, 2021.

“Annebella Pollen’s richly illustrated study examines the idiosyncratic phenomenon of social nudism, or naturism, in 20th-century Britain, a place known for its lack of sunshine and conservative attitudes to sex. By bringing naturists’ own words and images to light, Nudism in a Cold Climate tells this little-known but fascinating history for the first time. From the 1930s, thousands of people appeared nude in books and magazines associated with the nudist movement, drawing attention to the cause, attracting public curiosity and inciting moral panics. Naturist nude photography offers a fascinating lens on moral, legal and aesthetic shifts over a century of dramatic social change, including national beliefs about sex and gender, ethnicity and class, pleasure and power. Nudism in a Cold Climate offers readers a fascinating glimpse behind British veils of propriety and a unique view inside an enduring experimental culture that sought to radically challenge, liberate and ultimately transform conventional attitudes to bodies and their representations.” (publisher’s blurb)