Lee Baxandall | |
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| Born | Lee Raymond Baxandall (1935-01-26)January 26, 1935 |
| Died | November 28, 2008(2008-11-28) (aged 73) Oshkosh, Wisconsin, U.S. |
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| Children | Phineas Baxandall |
Lee Raymond Baxandall (January 26, 1935 – November 28, 2008) was an American writer, translator, editor, and activist. He was first known for hisNew Left engagement with cultural topics and then as a leader of thenaturist movement.
Lee R. Baxandall was born on January 26, 1935, inOshkosh,Wisconsin, to Neita Evelyn (née Lee) and Raymond W. Baxandall. He attended Oshkosh High School.[1] He attended theUniversity of Wisconsin inMadison, where he obtained aBachelor of Arts in 1957 and aMaster of Arts in 1958 inEnglish, studiedcomparative literature at thedoctoral level, and became one of the editors ofStudies on the Left, aNew Left intellectual journal known for its free-wheeling qualities.[1][citation needed] In 1960, Baxandall traveled to revolutionaryCuba.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Baxandall demonstrated a strong interest in the relationship betweenculture, particularlytheatre, andradicalism. He translated plays byPeter Weiss andBertolt Brecht,[2] edited a collection of writings by the German social critic and psychologistWilhelm Reich, compiled an annotated bibliography onMarxism andaesthetics, and wrote numerous essays on major literary figures, including Bertolt Brecht andFranz Kafka. In 1965 he gave lectures at theFree University of New York on 'Marxist approaches to the Avant-Garde Arts.[3] Baxandall also wrote plays. HisHiroshima Requiem about the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan was put to music byLeonard Lehrman and performed in 1990. His playPotsy, which was chiefly a monolog in an outhouse, was also performed, as was his playClaws of the Eagle − Claws of the Jaguar,[4] which he wrote in 1967.
In 1973, he edited a collection of writings byKarl Marx andFriedrich Engels onart andliterature withPolish philosopherStefan Morawski. Baxandall's writing appeared in a wide variety of venues, from left-wing periodicals such asThe Nation,New Politics,The National Guardian, andLiberation, to mainstream publications includingThe New York Times and intellectual-cultural outlets such asPartisan Review,The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, andNew German Critique.
After the death of his father in 1970, Baxandall increasingly shifted his time back to Oshkosh. He took over his father's education publishing business, The Baxandall Company.[1] By the late 1970s,naturism become the main focus of Baxandall's activism. He first took up the activity as anEagle Scout in Wisconsin and frequented afree beach with his family atCape Cod National Seashore in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1974, he travelled to the West Coast of theUnited States to meet founders of the free beach movement there: Eugene Callen and Cec Cinder. This became Beachfront USA. Having inherited his family's publishing business in Oshkosh in 1970, which he managed by traveling back there monthly and then by relocating to there permanently in 1978, Baxandall began to publishFree Beaches magazine and created the Free Beaches Documentation Center, collecting data from all over the world on nude beaches. In 1980, he publishedLee Baxandall's World Guide to Nude Beaches & Recreation, a color guidebook locating places to go nude all over the world, which he succeeded in getting distributed through major book channels. It was updated and published again several times, the last being in 1996.
Baxandall's view was that nudism fostered body acceptance and broke down the alienation and repression that stood in the way of the realization of full human potential. He foundedThe Naturist Society[5] in 1980 and was the first editor of its magazine,Clothed with the Sun, launched in 1981 and renamedNude & Natural in 1989. The Naturist Society had very inclusive membership policies, in contrast to the more conservative America Sunbathing Association, now known as theAmerican Association for Nude Recreation. Baxandall is a member of their Nudist Hall Of Fame.
Baxandall was one of the originators, along with Eugene Callen, of "National Nude Weekend," later "National Nude Week", which he used to generate media attention for the cause. He helped organize and sponsor the first nationwide and later regional annual Naturist Gatherings, with seminars and nude fun for everyone. He also commissioned Edin and Ethel Vélez to produce a series of videos (World of Skinnydipping, etc.) depicting the naturist lifestyle and debunking myths surrounding nude recreation.
Baxandall founded theNaturist Action Committee, the primary group responsible for early warning and defense against those who would legislate naturists out of existence in the United States. He was the first to retain the services of a professional lobbyist to get the movement's viewpoint heard in state legislatures and Congress. He founded theNaturist Education Foundation, devoted to improving awareness and acceptance of naturism and body acceptance throughout North America.
In 1962, he marriedRosalyn Fraad.[1][citation needed] She became an earlywomen's liberation activist and they had a son,Phineas.[1][citation needed] Living inNew York City from 1962 to 1977, they were active in the movement to end theVietnam War.[citation needed] They later divorced.[6]
Lee's first brief marriage was to Judith Woelffer, with whom he had a child Pamela in 1958. In 1992, Baxandall remarried, to longtime companion Johanna Moore.[1][citation needed]
In 1995, Baxandall was diagnosed withParkinson's disease and he retired from public life in 2002.[citation needed] He died on November 28, 2008, in Oshkosh.[1]
Baxandall is commemorated by the naming of a bridge in his honour[7] at the Desert Shadows Inn Resort and Villas,Palm Springs, California.
| Nakedness and clothing | |
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| Nudity and sexuality | |
| Issues in social nudity | |
| Naturism | |
| Nude recreation | |
| By location | |
| Social nudity advocates | |
| Depictions of nudity | |
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