John Willie

John Alexander Scott Coutts (* 9. December 1902 in Singapore ; † 5. August 1962 ), also known by his stage name John Willie , was a pioneer of fetish photography and Bondagekünstler .

Life

Coutts was born in Singapore and grew up in England ; he came from a wealthy banking family. He taught himself drawing while living in Australia in the 1930s . In 1940 he moved to New York City , where he published his bondage and fetish magazine Bizarre from 1946 to 1959 . Issue No. 2 first appeared in 1946, Issue No. 1 was only published after Issue No. 13 in 1954. The reason for this is unknown.

The magazine contained photographs, many of which showed his wife. Another important part of each issue was numerous letters to the editor, leading to his being accused of making up most of them himself. However, he always insisted that these letters were genuine.

As a bondage artist, John Willie became known in particular through the character Sweet Gwendoline he created . Willie drew this (fully) female figure in a clear, anatomically correct style that clearly influenced later artists such as ENEG and Eric Stanton . Other characters he developed are the black-haired secret agent U69 ( also referred to as "U89" due to the censorship at the time , possibly a role model for Emma Peel ), who regularly has to free the naive Gwendoline from awkward situations (mostly voluntary and involuntary bondage), and the mostly clumsy Sir Dystic d'Arcy , the only male (probably a parody of Willie's himself) in the stories who lives with the dominant countess and who is after Gwendolin .

The comics were published by Irving Klaw , the same publisher who discovered Bettie Page as a bondage model and forced Eric Stanton to draw clothes over the whip marks in the originals of The Escape Artist and The Missing Princess .

In 1961, Coutts developed a brain tumor and was forced to give up his mail-order business. He destroyed his archives and returned to England, where he died a year later.

His character “Sweet Gwendolin” was the “model” for the song “Sweet sweet Gwendoline” by the Berlin band Die Ärzte . The figure was printed - albeit in a modified form as a skeleton - on the LP "Ab 18" and on tickets to one of her concerts. The song was later indexed by the Federal Testing Office for Media Harmful to Young People (BPJM).

Quote

“If a model is n't a good actress or doesn't have 'that special face', it is difficult for her to look sad and miserable while she's working for me. My studio is a very cheerful place - and so very different from the atmosphere that surrounds Gwendoline when the Countess gets her hands on it. ”- translated from John Willie, The Art of John Willie, Sophisticated Bondage (Book Two) ( Page 1)

literature

• A John Willie Portfolio , n.1 (a cura di Carl McGuire), Van Nuys, CA., London Ent. Ltd., 1987
• Bizarre: The Complete Reprint of John Willie's Bizarre , Vols. 1-26; ISBN 3-8228-9269-6 pockets . Edited by Eric Kroll .
• Plusieurs possibilites. Photographies de John Willie , Paris, Futuropolis, 1985
• The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline, 2nd Edition ISBN 0-914646-48-6 . Belier Press, 2nd edition (1999).
• The Art of John Willie - Sophisticated Bondage (Book One)
  • An illustrated biography edited by Stefano Piselli & Riccardo Morrocchi (128 pages)
• The Art of John Willie - Sophisticated Bondage (Book Two)
  • An illustrated biography edited by Stefano Piselli & Riccardo Morrocchi (128 pages)
• The Bound Beauties of Irving Klaw & John Willie , vol 2, Van Nuys, CA., Harmony Comm., 1977
• The First John Willie Bondage Photo Book , Van Nuys, CA., London Ent. Ltd., 1978
• The Second John Willie Bondage Photo Book , Van Nuys, CA., London Ent. Ltd., 1978
• The Works of John Willie (a cura di Peter Stevenson), s. l., se, sd

Web links

Commons : John Willie  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about John Willie in the catalog of the German National Library
• The Rembrandt of Pulp
• http://americanfetish.net
• John Willie