Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University, Bloomington. Incorporated in 1947, the institute's mission is to promote interdisciplinary research on human sexuality, gender, and reproduction. It has an archive of c.75, 000 sexually relevant photographs, begun by the celebrated field biologist Alfred C. Kinsey. (1894-1956). Photography's affordability and accessibility gave it a special place in Kinsey's mid-20th-century surveys of sexual practice. This collection of images depicting the nude human body and an array of sexual poses and acts encompasses a wealth of photographic prints, negatives, slides, and more unusual formats like stanhopes. The photographs, produced by commercial, fine-art, and amateur photographers, date from 1880 to the 1990s, but the majority are from 1940s and 1950s America. Although most of the makers are unknown, the institute has extensive holdings of work by George Platt Lynes and Wilhelm von Gloeden. Other known photographers represented include André de Dienes, Manassé, Clarence John Laughlin, Irving Penn, Judy Dater, Les Krims, and Joel-Peter Witkin. The collection's size and diversity make it a valuable academic resource. However, access remains restricted to qualified scholars as a result of the federal obscenity case US v. 31 Photographs (1957).
— Jennifer Pearson Yamashiro
Bibliography
- Squiers, C., and Pearson Yamashiro, J., Peek: Pictures from the Kinsey Institute (2000).
- Pearson Yamashiro, J., ‘Sex in the Field: Photography at the Kinsey Institute’ (Indiana University Ph.D. dissertation, 2002)
