Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden was born in Wismar, Germany, in 1856. His family background was wealthy but von Gloeden suffered from poor health which eventually persuaded him to settle in the Sicilian town of Taormina, which became his home throughout much of his life.
Von Gloeden was inspired to take up the relatively new medium of photography by his cousin, who was a commercial photographer, and von Gloeden’s sensitive photographs of the landscape and people of Sicily were soon collected with enthusiasm by his contemporaries.
Today, von Gloeden is remembered particularly for his striking portraits of young male nudes, of which few originals survive today. During his lifetime, an alliance between the fascist government in Italy and the Vatican brought about pornography charges against him which were later dropped but which, at the time, resulted in the destruction of much of von Gloeden’s original work. The best of his photographs to survive capture the warmth and heat of the Sicilian countryside and the calm sensuality of his subjects, embracing not only the classical togas and wreaths of the ancient Roman aristocracy but also the torn fingernails and dirty feet of von Gloeden’s young peasant models.
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