Parution – Venus With Biceps: A Pictorial History of Muscular Women

David Chapman et Patricia Vertinsky, Venus With Biceps: A Pictorial History of Muscular Women, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010, 256 p.

Venus with Biceps is the third collaboration with David L. Chapman, co-author of the previously published Comin’ at Ya! and American Hunks. David has a fantastic personal archive of historical photographs and memorabilia on muscular men and women; this archive has formed the basis of these three very distinctive books. (Comin’ at Ya! is notable for its 3-D photographs of the 1950s photographer Denny Denfield, and comes complete with 3-D glasses.) Venus with Biceps contains a myriad of colour and B&W photographs, drawings, and advertisements featuring muscular women over the past 100 years. It’s a fascinating concept, with surprisingly few antecedents. Unlike their male counterparts, whose musculature is often equated with physical beauty and sexual desire, muscular women and female bodybuilders have often been ostracized throughout history as “freaks” or worse. Venus with Biceps will go far in correcting this historical wrong, showing such women to be the strong, powerful individuals they are.

The book also features an essay by Patricia Vertinsky, a professor at the School of Human Kinetics at the University of British Columbia, specializing in the social and cultural history of the body.