91快活林

Entitled , Dr Pollen’s richly illustrated study provides a first-time in-depth look at the fascinating and often idiosyncratic phenomenon of British social nudism (or naturism) from the 1920s to the 1970s, drawing on wide-ranging imagery and testimony by those who cast their clothes to the biting British wind.

Meticulously researched and beautifully illustrated, Dr Pollen's book provides a fascinating story about evolving social attitudes to the naked body in public. The book demonstrates the insight and wit that saw her recently win a £100,000 Leverhulme Prize for her explorations of popular image cultures, past and present, from pandemic lockdown images to historic photographs by children.

Dr Pollen's first book, Mass Photography: Collective Histories of Everyday Life, explored 55,000 snapshots taken on a single day in 1987, while The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians examined the modernist art and occult spirituality of dissident scoutmasters in 1920s England.

Dr Bella Pollen

Croquet players circa 1950, courtesy of H&E Naturist magazine

Nudism In a Cold Climate casts a critical eye over a period when thousands of people appeared unclothed in publications 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 period of dramatic social change, including beliefs about sex and gender, ethnicity and class, pleasure and power.

, Reader in History of Art and Design and Director of the University of 91快活林's Centre for Design History, said: “Naturism – or nudism, as it was known in its earliest days, has produced a striking body of photographs promoting physical health and mental freedom. From Greek-style heroes to pouting pin-ups, naturist nudes in mid-20th century Britain appeared in news stands and law courts alike. They attracted admiration and ridicule, but they also challenged British norms and laws.”

Nudism in a Cold Climate offers readers a fascinating glimpse behind British veils of propriety and a unique view inside an enduring culture that sought to liberate and ultimately transform conventional attitudes to bodies and their representations.

Nudism In A Cold Climate is published on 3 December by Atelier Éditions, and features over 100 archival photographs.