“Not pornographic, man, they’re nudes.” Thus would Mom Luang Toy Xoomsai defend himself when faced with criticism in the prudish days of Field Marshall P. Pibulsongkram’s nationalist government which daily strived to micro-manage the lives and minds of Thai people, over every issue from prim and proper conduct to the waging of expansionist war upon a neighbouring country. In such a context, M L Toy’s nudes are much more than pictures of naked models; they are acts of defiance against the power of the fascist state and its imposed social order. They reflect the artist’s courage to publicly explore the beauty of Thai women, the models’ confidence in their bodies, and Thai male fantasies concerning the opposite sex.

Kathmandu Photo Gallery is proud to present M L Toy Xoomsai’s nude photography, produced between 1946 – 1961, in the form of 30 original prints made by him, unexhibited since the photographer’s death in 1961, as part of Kathmandu Photo Gallery’s ‘Seeking Forgotten Thai Photographers’ project to honour neglected artists hitherto unrecorded by Thai photography history.