Irving Klaw

Irving Klaw (November 9, 1910 – September 3, 1966), self-named the "Pin-up King", was an influential Jewish-American merchant of sexploitation, fetish, and Hollywood glamour pin-up photographs and films. Like his predecessor, Charles Guyette, who was also a merchant of fetish-themed photographs, Klaw was not a photographer, but a merchandiser of fetish art imagery and films. His great contribution to the world was to commission fetish art (with models like Bettie Page, June King, Joan Rydell, Jackie Miller, et al.) and sponsor illustrative artists (like Eric Stanton, Gene Bilbrew, and many others), and to indirectly promote the legacy of Charles Guyette and John Willie. Irving Klaw is a central figure in what fetish art historian Richard Pérez Seves has designated as the "Bizarre Underground," the pre-1970 fetish art years.