This talk examines the phenomenon of social nudism in Britain by looking at the visual culture of the movement in three phases, from its early years as an intellectual and utopian project in the 1920s and 1930s, to its growth and consolidation as a culture of clubs, magazines and governing organisations into the post-war period, and finally to the complications of its purpose in the context of censorship and permissiveness in the 1950s and 1960s.

Dr Annabella Pollen is Reader in History of Art and Design at University of Brighton. Her books include The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift (2015), Mass Photography (2015), Dress History (co-edited with Charlotte Nicklas, 2015) and Photography Reframed (co-edited with Ben Burbridge, 2018). She has two books out in 2021: Art without Frontiers, a history of art in international cultural relations, commissioned by the British Council, and Nudism in a Cold Climate, the subject of this talk.