New book reveals all about Britain's historic nudist movement

Entitled Nudism in a Cold Climate, Dr Pollen’s richly illustrated study provides a first-time in-depth look at the fascinating and often idiosyncratic phenomenon of British social nudism (or naturism) from the 1920s to the 1970s, drawing on wide-ranging imagery and testimony by those who cast their clothes to the biting British wind.

Meticulously researched and beautifully illustrated, Dr Pollen's book provides a fascinating story about evolving social attitudes to the naked body in public. The book demonstrates the insight and wit that saw her recently win a £100,000 Leverhulme Prize for her explorations of popular image cultures, past and present, from pandemic lockdown images to historic photographs by children.

Dr Pollen's first book, Mass Photography: Collective Histories of Everyday Life, explored 55,000 snapshots taken on a single day in 1987, while The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians examined the modernist art and occult spirituality of dissident scoutmasters in 1920s England.

Dr Bella Pollen

Croquet players circa 1950, courtesy of H&E Naturist magazine

Nudism In a Cold Climate casts a critical eye over a period when thousands of people appeared unclothed in publications associated with the nudist movement - drawing attention to the cause, attracting public curiosity and inciting moral panics. Naturist nude photography offers a fascinating lens on moral, legal and aesthetic shifts over a period of dramatic social change, including beliefs about sex and gender, ethnicity and class, pleasure and power.

Dr Pollen, Reader in History of Art and Design and Director of the University of Brighton's Centre for Design History, said: “Naturism – or nudism, as it was known in its earliest days, has produced a striking body of photographs promoting physical health and mental freedom. From Greek-style heroes to pouting pin-ups, naturist nudes in mid-20th century Britain appeared in news stands and law courts alike. They attracted admiration and ridicule, but they also challenged British norms and laws.”

Nudism in a Cold Climate offers readers a fascinating glimpse behind British veils of propriety and a unique view inside an enduring culture that sought to liberate and ultimately transform conventional attitudes to bodies and their representations.

Nudism In A Cold Climate is published on 3 December by Atelier Éditions, and features over 100 archival photographs.