Jonathan Anderson might be straddling two jobs right now, but there’s always time for gay porn. From June 25 until July 6, the Northern Irish designer is celebrating Pride with an exhibition of rare illustrations, hosted at JW Anderson’s Soho store. 

The illustrations in question are taken from Bob Mizer’s Physique Pictorial magazine, a quarterly publication that existed between from 1951 to 1990, and served as one of the 20th century’s leading “beefcake” magazines, which celebrated the male form in all its glory. By posturing as a bodybuilding journal, it allowed its gay male audience a thin layer of plausible deniability and aimed to evade obscenity laws (with decidedly mixed results). What could be a healthier, heartier vision of heterosexual masculinity than a trio of cowboys cavorting in a stable?

As attitudes changed throughout its lifespan, Physique Pictorial became more brazenly homoerotic. Within its pages, avid readers were introduced to artwork by the likes of Tom of Finland, George Quaintance and Dom Orejudos. With the new exhibition, JW Anderson has chosen to focus on the illustrations of one particular artist, anonymously named “Spartacus”, whose work influenced everyone from Robert Mapplethorpe to David Hockney. 

Spartacus’ illustrations were so pornographic that the artist was forced to be anonymous to avoid persecution, and, like many of Physique Pictorial’s contributors, their identity remains a mystery to this day. “It felt important to bring these artworks into the open, and give them the visibility they were once denied because of the censorship of the time,” says Anderson. “What’s interesting as well is how much influence these works carried, despite being produced under restriction.”

In total, there are 40 works of art on display at the JW Anderson store, some of which you can see by scrolling through the gallery above.