“While some of these photographs are amusing visual jokes, others are sentimental, documenting fleeting youth, beauty and social bonds,” says curator Theresa Leininger-Miller, professor of art history at DAAP.

The collection of approximately 130 photography items has been referred to as “cheeky” — for the bare and clothed backsides — Miller says, noting that taking imagery from behind became an international fad between 1860-1900. 

As exposure times became quicker and photography became more affordable, customers were less concerned with recording social status and more interested in collaborating with photographers to create playful scenes, she says.

FotoFocus is a Cincinnati based nonprofit organization created to celebrate and champion photography as the medium of our time through programming that ignites a dialogue between contemporary lens-based art and the history of photography.

Feature photo of exhibit by UC student An Le.