Peter Berlin, San Francisco, 1974.

Gelatin silver print, hand-tinted by photographer.

Signed and dated in ink on the bottom right, "D. Forbes 74."

A hand-tinted photograph of the famous German-American homoerotic artist, Peter Berlin, showcasing Berlin wearing a revealing leather ensemble in front of a house on risers. This photograph was published in After Dark (February 1975), the legendary New York entertainment and lifestyle magazine.

8 11/16 x 6 in. (22 x 15.1 cm.)

Literature (Illustrated):

After Dark, February 1975. New York City: Danad Publishing Company, Inc., 1975. Illustrated.

Bisonnes, Fred. Bare Essentials: Memoir of Homoeroticist Fred Bisonnes: Book 2: The Gallery. Dancing Faun Publishing, 2021. Illustrated.

Notes:

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Dennis Forbes relocated to San Francisco in 1972, where he worked as a freelance ghost writer, graphic designer, and photographer, in 1974 becoming art director for Vector (monthly newsstand publication of the Society for Individual Rights); and 1975-1976 as art director of The Advocate, guiding its evolution from a Los Angeles bar newspaper to a biweekly tabloid-format national gay-news magazine. In that capacity he contributed numerous photos and illustrations, including montages and pencil and ink renderings, especially caricatures of gay personalities both historical and contemporary.

Following a stint as the production-stills photographer for Falcon Studios (and designer of its print advertising and brochures), Forbes launched a series of unique magazine-format picture publications featuring combinations of his male-nude photography, homoerotic illustrations, and short erotic fiction. With the colophons Western Man and Lobo, these were printed and distributed by Le Salon, also based in San Francisco.

In 1984, Liberation Publications Inc. (LPI, parent company of The Advocate) commissioned Forbes to singlehandedly create the monthly gay newsstand/subscription magazine Advocate Men. Using the anagram Fred Bisonnes, he served as its staff photographer until 1989; and during those five years he photographed scores of male models, as well as produced numerous illustrations in different styles and mediums, including caricatures of gay pornstars to accompany video reviews.

He lives today on a wooded mountainside nearby Asheville, NC, and continues writing gay-themed fiction as Fred Bisonnes and creating montage and assemblage art.

Nothing adverse to note.

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