Hubert Julian Stowitts

Hubert Julian "Jay" Stowitts (1892–1953) seems almost tailor-made for bushnstache. Born in Rushville, Nebraska—the same state that later gave us Bruce Bellas—he was an athlete, dancer, actor, painter and gay man whose life kept intersecting with the male body. After studying at Berkeley, he joined Anna Pavlova's ballet company in 1915 and became the first American to star with a Russian ballet troupe. 

1. Hubert Julian Stowitts in an "orientalist"-styled costume he designed based on his work with Ballet Russes, in which he danced alongside famed ballerina Anna Pavlova (the inspiration for the "light" meringue dessert). Photo by E.O. Hoppé - 1920 - London.

2. Stowitts with a small sculpture of himself by Rex Ingram titled, Torso of Hubert Stowitts - 1926- Nice, France. Rex Ingram was also a filmmaker and Stowitt's starred in his silent dark horror film The Magician-1926, in which Stowitts played a wood faun (á la l'Apres-midi d'un Faune tr. Afternoon of a Faun ballet by Vaslav Nijinsky-1912) brought to life during a feverish, surreal nightmare sequence. The character is a symbol of untamed, ancient sensuality. For the role, Stowitts wore nothing but the metallic silk turban visible in these pictures and a minimal leather loincloth. His skin was coated in a reflective sheen to make his musculature pop under the harsh studio lights.

 

And then there are the photographs. Hungarian-born Nickolas Muray photographed Stowitts nude in the early 1920s, as did British photographer Bertram Park. What fascinates me is how modern some of these images feel. Stowitts isn't simply displaying his body—the dancer is clearly helping create the shapes, gestures and lines of the photograph.

3. Stowitt's Torso by Nickolas Muray - 1922 - NYC. Muray also took portraits of Frida Kahlo during this same period.

4. Stowitts by Bertram Park - 1920 - London.

5. Stowitts by Bertram Park - 1920.

 

Muray also photographed him nude with a bow and helmet in 1921, which brings us right back to my recent Bows & Arrows post. And once again we encounter that strange early habit of combining the nude male body, archery and culturally borrowed costume.

6. Stowitts as The Archer by Muray - 1921.

7. Stowitts in Native-American inspired costume with bow.  Stowitts credits himself as the creator for designing the costume and look, but historians believe Muray also took this photo in 1922. This image ties to my recent themes of weapon hand props, Bows & Arrows, which included culturally misappropriated images of white men in Native-American headdresses etc...something too common at that time.

 

His American Champions series included 55 life-size paintings of nude American athletes and dancers—including Ted Shawn and six of Shawn's Men Dancers. Stowitts considered the dancers athletes too, praising Shawn for championing dance as a form of athletic training. When the American Olympic Committee rejected the paintings, Stowitts took them to Berlin himself during the 1936 Olympics, where the exhibition was eventually shut down by the Nazis.

8. Stowitts with two paintings from his series the American Champions for the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin for which he blended ancient Greek Olympic ideals with sharp art deco lines. These images were controversial at the times. The athletes posed completely naked. Stowitts self-funded a massive trip to take these paintings to Germany, holding an exhibition from September 5 to September 10, 1936, at a private gallery in Berlin to coincide with the Olympic Games. However, the Nazi regime promptly shut the exhibition down after just a few days. Nazi officials were outraged because Stowitts' collection celebrated the true diversity of the American team, displaying beautiful, heroic, and idealized portraits of African-American and Jewish athletes alongside white athletes. This directly clashed with the Aryan supremacy propaganda Adolf Hitler was attempting to project globally during the 1936 games. The closure left Stowitts destitute in Germany until filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl helped him secure choreographing work to pay for his passage back to California.

9. Stowitts painting of tennis star of the times, Bobby Riggs, for the American Champions series.

10. Stowitts painting of decathlete, Woodrow "Woody" Strode, as the javelin thrower for the American Champions series. Strode also posed for the discuss painting for this series and was also an NFL player and Hollywood actor.

 

Stowitts reminds me a little of George Quaintance: dancer, photographer's model and artist all seem to meet in an intense fascination with the ideal male body. And there's one last connection I love—near the end of his life, Stowitts began an unfinished Labors of Hercules series using Steve Reeves as his model. From Pavlova to nude photography to Ted Shawn to Steve Reeves, Stowitts somehow wandered through several chapters of the history I've been following here.

11. Stowitts' painting of an Indian street performer from his Vanishing India series, c. 1929. His fascination with the “Orient” reminds me of Denishawn, led by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn (featured in my April 26 Dancers post), who also looked to India and Asia for inspiration and incorporated Orientalist imagery into their costumes and choreography. Among the dancers who came through Denishawn were Martha Graham and Jack Cole, later considered the father of American jazz dance and a choreographer for Marilyn Monroe.

Please leave thoughts, questions, corrections or additions in the comments. Thank you, bns