The Bob Mizer Foundation will soon be relocating to a new site, thanks to a very kind gift from Trent Dunphy and Bob Mainardi, the owners of San Francisco-based The Magazine.

 

The new location, a sprawling, four-story building, is located in San Francisco’s bustling downtown area at 920 Larkin Street. No official move-in date has been revealed, but staffers from the Foundation will start relocating over the next few months.

 

The Foundation is currently headquartered in the suburb of El Cerrito, across the Bay from the new digs. The move will allow it to grow, and help reach more people about the influence Bob Mizer had on queer culture and erotic art. Mizer was one of the first people to make suggestive "physique" photos commercially available to men, risking jail time and ridicule for doing so.

 

“Since I acquired his estate in 2003, I’ve envisioned building a research institution dedicated to masculinity in photography, anchored by Bob Mizer’s pioneering legacy,” explained Den Bell, founder and president of the Foundation. “Bob and Trent’s gift puts this dream on the fast track. Their own legacy and dedication to the preservation of physique photography is a perfect match to the Foundation’s mission, and I couldn’t be more excited to call The Magazine our new home.”

 

The Magazine has been a mainstay in San Francisco since the early 1970s. The Foundation will share the space with it for the foreseeable future, according to Bell.

 

 

Mainardi and Dunphy -- 70 and 78 years old respectively -- have a very extensive personal collection of male physique photography which they are also donating to the Foundation.

 

“We are pleased and gratified to know that we will be leaving our collection, which has given us much pleasure over the years, to the Mizer Foundation which will preserve and share this important part of gay history with our community," they said. "Bob Mizer was a leader in this field and encouraged many artists and photographers in their work. We are pleased to make our contribution to his vision and legacy.”

 

Bell hopes to create an exhibition and gift shop in the new space, and establish a research area on the second floor where students and scholars can work with the Foundation’s archival materials (such as photographs, slides and film prints.)

 

Do you think that 60 years from now there'll be a Men.com Foundation? It could happen.