Artists & photographers of ‘O’
Leonor Fini 
Artists & photographers of ‘O‘: Between 1968 and 1975 several editions of Histoire d’O were produced in France as large ‘luxury’ editions containing illustrations (in colour and black & white) by the surrealist painter born in Buenos Aires LEONOR FINI (1918-1996). Fini was raised in Trieste, Italy. 
She moved to Milan at the age of 17, and then to Paris, in the early 1930s. There, she became acquainted with, among many others, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, Georges Bataille, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Picasso, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, and Salvador Dalí. The sphinx and cats play major parts in her paintings, as does the theme of ‘the double’. Many of her paintings feature strong, beautiful women (many resembling herself) in ceremonial or provocative situations. Men are often portrayed as lithe figures who are under the protection of her females. Her obituary in the London Times stressed her physical beauty, her erotic art, and her legions of lovers, whose names “read like a roll call of the literary and artistic talents of that brilliant age.”
O
Hans Bellmer 
Artists & photographers of ‘O’ Artist Hans Bellmer (1902-75) supplied a medallion size engraving for the cover of the Histoire d’O first: edition published by Jean-Jacques Pauvert in Paris (1954).
However, only a small number of the first edition were printed in this fashion possibly only for friends of the publisher and those of the author. Bellmer at this time was working on illustrations for editions of Sade and Bataille’s Story of the Eye.
(A book seller offering a copy of the 1st edition maintaines, “The first twenty copies on Arches paper has an original engraving by Hans Bellmer, surrealist whose work on eroticism, animated and inanimated bodies resonate with the theme of this “destruction in joy” to borrow the words of Pauline Réage.”)
O
Guido Crepax 
Artists & photographers of ‘O’: Guido Crepax (b.1933. Milan – d.2003) It was his creation Valentina, who first appeared in 1965, that proved for illustrator Guido Crepax the potentiality of cartoon literature or ‘fumetti’. Crepax created Bianca (1970), Belinda (1973), Anita (1973), and went on to produce distinctive comic- strip versions of Story of O (1975), Emmanuelle (1979), Justine(1980), and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1984).
Story of O was drawn between 1973 and 1974. Grove Press published the comic in English in 1978. A paperback edition was published as three separate volumes, the third volume being based upon the film Story of O 2. The art of Crepax has been the subject of appraisals by intellectuals of the calibre of Roland Barthes, Alan Robbe-Grillet and Umberto Eco. He died in 2003.
O
loic Dubigeon 
Artists & photographers of ‘O’: Dubigeon’s style, mostly in pencil, is sophisticated realism, – hand drawn, in black on white. Scenes of violence and physical acts seduce the viewer in numerous drawings inspired by Story of O. “In the late 70s… a big Munich publisher… suggested I illustrate a luxury edition of the Story of O. I was very keen. I started work straight away, but the project was called off… When Alaine Robbe-Grillet saw my plates, he put me in touch with Roger Borderie. We made an agreement and Story of O was published with my drawings in September 1981. I was knocked out by the quality of the writing in Pauline Reage’s novel… I found making the drawings extremely captivating.” – Loic Dubigeon (‘La Scene’)
Exhibitions in Nantes, Paris, Dieppe, Brussels, Amsterdam, Madrid, Oslo, Vienna, New York and Hamburg.
O
Stefan Prince 
Artists & photographers of ‘O‘: UK artist and creator of this website, Stefan (known to some as “Keeper of the Book” or ‘Bookkeeper’).
Over forty large oil paintings and numerous drawings since 1994 all inspired by Story of O. Some now in private collections. Examples exhibited in London at the Coventry Gallery, Erotica (Olympia), The Erotic Art Exhibition (2019), and elsewhere. Featured in Skin Two, Desire, Marquis Fetish Images 2, Penthouse Fetish, and in the film ‘Preaching to the Perverted’.
‘Erotic Oscar’ finalist (London 2000).
“…there is a power here that far exceeds illustration. Although Stefan has taken STORY OF O as his inspiration the paintings have an autonomous life that is independent of the book. Something is about to happen and if you watch quietly and do not draw attention to yourself you will witness it…”(Noel Myles)
O
Lynn Paula Russell 
Artists & photographers of ‘O’: One of Britain’s few erotic film stars, Lynn Paula Russell has become an established illustrator in the field of SM erotica. Over several years during the 1980’s she produced a series of stunning illustrations based on Story of O for a private patron. In recent years her work has been published by The Erotic Print Society, London, and featured regularly in Februs magazine and elsewhere… 
Lynn Paula Russell recalls exhibiting at ‘Les Larmes d’Eros’ in Paris thus; “On the opening night of my show I was surrounded by an extraordinary assortment of people, some in fetish wear, some smart and glamorous. There were intellectuals, a psychologist, writers and other artists. I chatted to a petite lady in her sixties, her hair swept back severely off her face, who told me of her exploits as a dominatrix. This was obviously one of her great pleasures in life. To my delight, I also found out that she was quite a famous writer too. She had written a strange and darkly erotic book called ‘L’Image’. I knew it well and had assumed that the pseudonym Jean de Berg meant that the author must be a man. For a moment I felt a wave of excitement, as if I had been an eleven year old boy meeting their favourite football star! Just to think: this lady had probably actually KNOWN Pauline Reage!” [the lady was of course, Catherine Robbe-Grillet]
O
francoise Muller 
Artists & photographers of ‘O’: French artist Francoise Muller illustrated Histoire d’O for Editions Famot. Born in Strasbourg in 1949, Muller has described her work as, ” all about the continuing desire for a balance between heaven and earth, a harmony of bodies for spiritual well-being and an eventual transcendence… I seek to construct a peaceful and serene world full of realized dreams.” In her pictures birds are the messengers of the invisible world, fish signify renaissance and ceremonies are inspired by “ancient mysteries”.
1968-1971 – Elève aux Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg/ 1971-1973 – Collabore au journal”La Maison Française” à Paris/ 1973-1974 – Professeur de gravure à l’Académie d’Art de Provence. Exhibitions in France, Belgium and Japan.
O
David Wilde 
David Wilde (Norman Shacklock 1918-74) illustrated a series of erotic books including Story of O for a private client. Born Norman Shacklock but adopting the name Wilde as he felt it suited his temperament, David Wilde certainly wore two hats as a painter but did he really exhibit alongside Dali and Picasso in Paris as is continually repeated? His work (often extremely uneven in quality) managed to find a place in Erotic Masters of the 20th Century (pub. Germany 1984-5).
O
Artists & photographers of ‘O’
Musubu Nakai 
Fascinating Histoire d’O Japanese art by self confessed hikikomori artist. Ex university student and garbage-picker Musubu Nakai explains, “I work hard and enjoy things that give me pleasure. 
The most pleasurable things are sex and stroking my cat’s head. – That is why my drawings are composed of these things.” Nakai is creating an extraordinary body of work that includes his own Histoire d’O. Musubu effortlessly transforms Dominique (Pauline Réage) Aury’s childhood phantasms into the world he makes his own. The novel’s text illustrated, and carefully bound, stitched together in hand made bindings, O’s world become fairytale, whip-marks and moths. The whole secretive and discreet. Musubu is clearly a master of his chosen path and a fascinatingly fastidious talent. He has tapped into his homeland’s propensity for little-girl culture and identified himself completely with the subject matter of the old masters painters, poets and photographers the world over, that of the adolescent female as a supreme and sacred form of Beauty.
O
Kuniyoshi Kaneko 
Kuniyoshi Kaneko (1936 – 2015) was an extraordinary artist whose comet-like rise in Japan began with his début in 1967 with his illustrations to Story of O as translated by Ryuhio Shibusawa. His women of a sophisticated decadence, perhaps from a period earlier than his own, struck a chord. He went on to illustrate a number of other novels of French literature including Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye and Madam Edwarda.
O
Josien Vogelaar 
O (2009): Short hand drawn animation film based on the novel Story of O. The film was made during an exhibition at the Art Center in Amsterdam Zuidoost (Centrum Beeldende Kunst Zuidoost). The film is inspired on the book’s last chapter.
Artist and animator born in the Hague 1968.
(1994/1999) Master Painting & Drawing Gerrit Rietveld Academie (1988/1992) Master Cultural Studies, University of Amsterdam. She started making short animation films from 2007. Her films have been screened at several exhibitions and festivals in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
O
Valeria Kemnits 
Valeria Kemnits graduated from the Moscow Folk Arts Higher School and Stroganov Moscow State University of Industrial And Applied Arts. She states, “I chose this book [Story of O] for my diploma work because it’s kind of fairy tale, – a little bit. Unfortunately they were not published. That’s my big dream…”
O
Natalie Frank 
Artists & photographers of ‘O’: In her art works New York based painter Natalie Frank divides Story of O into 15 different and brilliantly coloured drawings. “I only have one sex scene and one whipping scene,” she told the New York Magazine. To Frank, while the book may keep track of O’s butt-plug size, “it’s not about sex. It’s about power and sexuality and identity and the imagination … She is the main actor in all of the lines.” Frank states she considers the book, “a testament to the power of a woman to manipulate the tropes of pornography to suit her ends,” and that nowadays she re-reads Story of O every year. “The book begins with O’s consent, and ends with her consent. Every interaction is consensual. I see it as a very sex positive, feminist icon of literature. And many do, including Susan Sontag, who uses it to talk about the difference between art and pornography in “The Pornographic Imagination.” So in my drawings, I wanted O to come across as always self-possessed and I follow her in each scene I chose to depict—I wanted the images to feel like they were constructed from her point of view, not a voyeur’s.” One time student at the Slade School of Art, University College London, Natalie Frank was born in 1980 in Austin, Texas.
O
Artists & photographers of ‘O’
Giovanni Romanini & Lucio Filippucci
Giovanni Romanini ( Bologna , 27 December 1945 ) and Lucio Filippucci ( Bologna , 30 November 1955 ) set a standard for Italian comic strips during the 1970s and 1980s. Together they planned to collaborate on Story of O (below). In 2019 Lucio Filippucci wrote to me, “This drawing was created for a comic book in France, but this project was interrupted because at that time I began to work with Bonelli and Romanini with Disney. Maybe one day we will return again to work on this project..” (sadly on 20 March 2020, Romanini died of a heart attack at the age of 75)
O
“Anonymous” 
21 original designs for Histoire d’O perhaps “commissioned by a publisher to illustrate an unidentified edition, or by a collector to embellish a copy” of the novel. Probably watercolours produced in the 1980s emulating the style of Jim from the early 1960s.
O
T. Monnet 
Suite of 18 original designs in a naive style signed T. MONNOT: indications suggest the illustrations were to be published in an illustrated version of Histoire d’O but never published.
O
Photographers & O
Artists & photographers of ‘O’: Numerous photographers have flirted with images redolent of Histoire d’O including Claude Alexandre and John Deitrich. It could be said that few find an original voice within the darker regions of erotic photography. France’s Gilles Berquet comes to mind as does the UK’s China Hamilton (above). Mr Hamilton writes, “My work explores a most challenging and difficult area of visual art. The erotic and its sub-sections and divisions of this massive subject have always found it a hard battle to be accepted and enjoyed as other aspects of the arts are. It is often only with the distance of historical time that any such work is taken seriously by the establishment. Yet of all the subjects that art can choose it is the nearest to the truth of joys and pains, our true selves and our most precious inner thoughts… The erotic is beyond simple pornography for it feeds our mind and not our body.”
Doris Kloster 
The Illustrated Story Of O
by Doris Kloster with extracts from the original text by Pauline Réage
Introduction by Jean-Jacques Pauvert
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, La Musardine France, 2001
Doris Kloster is a world-recognized photo artist whose unique vision has found expression in art books of her own conception, exhibitions, installations and films. She has also worked as a commercial photographer. Kloster realised a long-standing ambition with The Illustrated Story of O. Her book presents over fifty superb images which mirror the intense eroticism of the novel. Shooting entirely in Paris and its environs, Kloster sought to match characters, locations, costumes and props to the original descriptions. Each colour photograph is accompanied by a short extract from the novel and together the portraits create a rich visual feast.
Artists & photographers of ‘O’
SEE ALSO: Various ‘Artists of O’ investigated on the O-Blog <here>