View source for Athletic Model Guild

{{Short description|American physique photography studio}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Athletic Model Guild
| logo = AMG Logo.jpg
| logo_size = 170px
| type = Private
| foundation = [[Los Angeles]] (1945)
| location = [[El Cerrito, Contra Costa County, California|El Cerrito]], [[California]], US
| industry = Male [[nude photography]]
| products = [[Homoerotic]] photography, Films and Publications
| homepage = 
}}
The '''Athletic Model Guild''', or '''AMG''', was a [[physique photography]] studio founded by [[Bob Mizer]] in December 1945. During those post-war years, United States censorship laws allowed women, but not men, to appear in various states of undress in what were referred to as "art photographs". Mizer began his business by taking pictures of men that he knew. His subjects would often pose for pictures which illustrated fitness tips and the like, but were also viewed as [[homoerotic]] material.

==History==
[[File:Grant, Jim.jpg|thumb|upright|AMG model Jim Grant in 1949]]
Mizer established the Guild in December 1945 after spending the earlier part of the year taking photographs at Venice Beach and the offices were based around his life-long home.<ref name="swanson">{{cite news |last1=Swanson |first1=Carl |title=Fantasy Camp: Photographs by Underground Legend Bob Mizer Come Up for Air - Slideshow |url=https://www.vulture.com/2013/10/bob-mizer-photographs-in-new-exhibits.html |access-date=11 June 2021 |work=Vulture |date=27 October 2013 |language=en-us}}</ref><ref name="harrity">{{cite news |last1=Harrity |first1=Christopher |title=The Mid-Century Male Bulge Is Ready for You |url=https://www.out.com/art-books/2018/3/29/mid-century-male-bulge-ready-you#media-gallery-media-1 |access-date=11 June 2021 |work=www.out.com |date=2018-03-29 |language=en}}</ref> The formula used by AMG consisted of images (moving and still) of hunky young men doing [[bodybuilding]] poses, or perhaps [[wrestling]] in pairs or acting out improvised scenes. Mizer did appear in court to face several charges over the years, including obscenity, drug use, and [[prostitution]].  Allegedly, Mizer's AMG models would sometimes earn extra money renting themselves out as [[gay for pay]] hustlers, but Mizer argued vigorously that it was not his business what they did on their own time. Despite some legal setbacks, AMG survived its many trials.

The AMG material (sold in the form of photographic prints, magazines, and short films) slowly evolved over time, from altered images where the male genitalia were painted over or otherwise covered, to photographic prints where the models wore extremely skimpy posing straps, and then finally, as the changing laws allowed, to full nudity. He used his quarterly magazine, ''[[Physique Pictorial]]'' which featured other artists such as [[Tom of Finland]] and [[MATT]], as means of advertising his material.<ref name="davidk">{{cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=David K. |title=Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement |date=2019 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-18910-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HHL-tgEACAAJ |access-date=11 June 2021 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="how">{{cite news |last1=Petroff |first1=Bryan |title=How Bob Mizer's 'Physique Pictorial' Pioneered Modern Gay Erotica |url=https://www.out.com/vaults/2017/9/26/how-bob-mizers-physique-pictorial-pioneered-modern-gay-erotica |access-date=11 June 2021 |work=www.out.com |date=2017-09-26 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Dispatch Fall 2002 |title=Remembering Matt |url=https://www.worldoftomoffinland.com/foundation/Dispatch/Dispatch2002aug/Matt.htm |access-date=2024-01-08 |website=World of Tom of Finland}}</ref> Several bodybuilders and actors of the day got their start posing for Mizer and his friends at AMG. It is estimated that he shot over 10,000 men throughout the course of his career. [[Andy Warhol]]'s protégé [[Joe Dallesandro]] was one of the many AMG models that even those not acquainted with Athletic Model Guild might be familiar with. Others included [[Ed Fury]] and [[Glenn Corbett]] of ''[[77 Sunset Strip]]'', and [[Susan Hayward]] and [[Alan Ladd]]. Bodybuilder and future Governor of [[California]], [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] posed for AMG under Mizer in 1975.<ref name=BobsWorld>Hanson, Dian, 2009. ''Bob's World: The Life and Boys of AMG's Bob Mizer''. Koln, [[Germany]]: [[Taschen]]. {{ISBN|978-3-8365-1230-5}}, p. 19.</ref>

Editorials in ''Physique Pictorial'' claimed that AMG had 35,000 photographs in its library by 1957. Two years later, the figure had risen to 50,000.<ref>{{cite book|title=Fully Exposed: The Male Nude in Photography|last=Cooper|first=Emmanuel|publisher=Routledge|edition=2nd|year=2007|orig-year=1st pub. 1990|oclc=1050065497|page=102}}</ref>

After Mizer's death in May 1992, Wayne Stanley, a friend and legal advisor, tended to his archives. In 2004 the company and its archives were sold to physique photographer Dennis Bell.{{cn|date=February 2020}} Under Bell's reins, Athletic Model Guild continues to operate as Bob Mizer Foundation.  The 1998 movie ''[[Beefcake (film)|Beefcake]]'', directed by Thom Fitzgerald, combines documentary footage with fictionalized dramatizations in an attempt to tell the story of Mizer and AMG.  

In 2016, Taschen published a book featuring one thousand of the Guild's models, a reprint of a 1957 publication of the same name.<ref name="graver">{{cite news |last1=Graver |first1=David |title=Bob Mizer's Two-Volume "AMG: 1000 Model Directory" |url=https://coolhunting.com/culture/bob-mizer-1000-model-directory/ |access-date=11 June 2021 |work=COOL HUNTING® |date=2016-08-16}}</ref><ref name="nahmod">{{cite news |last1=Nahmod |first1=David-Elijah |title=Tenderloin Favorite 'The Magazine' To Become Archive For Bob Mizer Foundation |url=https://hoodline.com/2016/10/tenderloin-favorite-the-magazine-to-become-archive-for-bob-mizer-foundation/ |access-date=11 June 2021 |work=hoodline.com |date=2016-10-11 |language=en}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[David Hurles]]
*''[[Physique Pictorial]]''

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Padva, Gilad. Nostalgic Physique: Displaying Foucauldian Muscles and Celebrating the Male Body in ''Beefcake''. In Padva, Gilad, ''Queer Nostalgia in Cinema and Pop Culture'', pp.&nbsp;35–57 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, {{ISBN|978-1-137-26633-0}}).

==External links==
* [https://www.bobmizer.org/ Bob Mizer Foundation]
* {{IAFD studio|204}}
*{{Commonscat-inline|Athletic Model Guild}}

{{Gay male pornographic film studios}}
{{American pornographic film studios|state=collapsed}}
{{Early U.S. gay rights movement}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Physique photography]]
[[Category:American gay pornographic film studios]]
[[Category:Gay male pornography in the United States]]
[[Category:Pornography in Los Angeles]]
[[Category:Entertainment companies based in California]]
[[Category:Companies based in Contra Costa County, California]]
[[Category:American companies established in 1945]]
[[Category:Mass media companies established in 1945]]
[[Category:1945 establishments in California]]