Elmer Batters: From the tip of the toes to the top of the hose

Elmer Batters (1919-1997) was the grand master of leg and foot art. While others preferred the thrill of an inviting cleavage, the maestro’s eye was on lower things—trim calves, the arch of a foot, the well-made lines of toes and heels. He chose his models with these criteria in mind—and with the obsessiveness of a Zen artist spent his lifetime looking for the perfect leg. Batters started out publishing his photos himself, but from the late ’60s onwards the field was his, and he was the star house photographer of magazines such as Leg-O-Rama, Nylon Doubletake and Black Silk Stockings, to name but a few. This book pays homage to Batters’s great obsession with legs, feet, and toes.