

Al Urban was one of the first photographers to specialize in the depiction of bodybuilders, having offered his first images for sale in 1937. He worked primarily in New Jersey and New York, where in 1960 his negatives and photographs were confiscated and he was arrested on obscenity charges, a common fate for physique photographers. For this photograph, Urban posed his model to resemble the Discobolus, or Discus Thrower, the famous work carved by the Greek sculptor Myron in the 5th century BCE.