Swinging back to the models for a moment, I wanted to highlight Ralph McWilliams (1926–1981), a dancer with American Ballet Theatre and one of the muses orbiting George Platt Lynes and the PaJaMa circle. Dancers show up again and again in this world alongside athletes, bodybuilders, and actors—and it’s not hard to see why.
Yes, the bodies are strong and disciplined, but more than that, dancers know how to collaborate. They can take direction, translate an idea into a physical image, and shape their bodies with intention. They understand line, light, and how to “perform” for the camera in a way that feels natural but is actually highly refined.
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There’s a long history here. Painters have always been drawn to dancers—think Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse—but as photography steps forward, we start to see more male dancers come into focus, from Vaslav Nijinsky to Rudolf Nureyev. The partnership makes sense.
Dance is already a visual art built on collaboration—sets, costumes, staging—so bringing that same sensibility into a photographer’s studio feels like a natural extension. And in many cases, dancers helped keep these images leaning toward art rather than something more explicit—more sculpture and stage than locker room—giving photographers a kind of visual cover through form, composition, and restraint.
McWilliams fits right into that lineage, but he also stands out. He wasn’t locked into one lane—his career moved between ballet, modern dance, Broadway, and television, and later into stage management and production for major companies like American Ballet Theatre and Alvin Ailey.
That versatility shows up in the images. He had the kind of presence that could define a photographer’s aesthetic, and in Lynes’s case, help shape some of those now-iconic compositions. One of those quiet figures who may not be widely known, but once you see him, you start to recognize how much he’s been there all along.
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