Opening Reception: Friday, May 2, 6 – 9 pm
Linnea Eleanor “Bunny” Yeager (1929–2014) was an American photographer and model from Wilkinsburg, PA. She is best known for her pioneering work in Glamour, Pin-Up, and Cheesecake photography, a genre popularized by the prominence of commercial imagery featuring semi-nude women in the United States during the early 20th Century.
Working primarily in Miami, FL during the 1950s and 60s, Bunny Yeager gained fame for her provocative self-portraits and images of women. Her work appeared in major publications such as US Camera, Life, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and Playboy, where she helped dene the magazine’s early visual style. Beyond photography, Yeager ventured into lm, movie still photography, and publishing. She authored over 20 books including Bunny Yeager’s Art of Glamour Photography (1962), How to Photograph the Figure (1963), and How I Photograph Myself (1964), sharing her artistic process and technical expertise with amateur photographers and models.
Yeager’s widely circulated photographs played a key role in shaping the image of the modern American woman in the postwar era as the seductive, yet approachable “girl next door” and “domestic goddess.” This image, promoted heavily by mainstream media, reflected postwar gender expectations by merging two contrasting archetypes: the glamorous, sexualized WWII-era Pin-Up model and the nurturing, wholesome housewife (heterosexual, white, and rooted in family values). Yeager herself embodied this image, embracing the title of “World’s Prettiest Photographer,” bestowed by US Camera in 1953. She reinforced this persona through national television appearances on programs like What’s My Line (1957) and The Tonight Show (1966) where she discussed her excitement in balancing an artistic career with her family life.
As both a model and photographer, Yeager offered a fresh perspective on the visual representation of the feminine form in multiple industries dominated by men. She empowered her subjects and showcased them as confident, glamorous, and creative women. During a time when women’s rights and liberation were emerging as critical and contested topics in the US, Yeager’s work challenged traditional portrayals of women as passive objects. The Feminine in Focus explores how these works contribute to broader conversations about gender, performance, and self-representation. The photographic works in this exhibition, acquired directly from Yeager’s estate, exemplify her and her models’ efforts to reclaim their bodies and present their sexuality as an act of creative expression.
Co-Curated by Andrea A. Guerrero and Michelle Strassburger
