Penis Envy, My Ass: the photo

January 11, 2009 1:26 PM

Please help me figure out how to contact a particular photographer to obtain duplicate images of a photo. NSFW

We have a photo in our house that hangs over one of our toilets. It looks like this (image is NSFW):

NSFW link

The title is self-explanatory. It seems equally clear that the photographer's name is Marilyn Lee. (Perhaps she is the subject as well?)

My wife had this image on laminated newsprint when we were in college in North Carolina the early to mid-90s. It's possible, even probable, that the original print came from a newsweekly in Memphis, where she grew up. I seem to recall the original image being a "centerfold" of some sort - I think it was a numbered image that was presumably one of a series of such numbered images that appeared in the center of this local newspaper. Somewhere along the line we acquired a nice photo of the image, which we've framed, and we discarded her original laminated newsprint copy.

A large number of our female friends and relatives think this is a cool photo, and I'd like to be able to contact the photographer to obtain duplicates to give as gifts. (If anyone else can find the image without going through the photographer, that's fine, too!) I'd think this would be straightforward but my Google-fu has failed me.

Thanks!

posted by cheapskatebay to media & arts (9 comments total)

Perhaps Marilyn Lee is not the photographer or the subject. Are you aware of this site? Maybe she used it as a cover illustration for one of her "erotic romances". Seems to dovetail (Har!) quite nicely.
posted by dinger at 3:04 PM on January 11

Per the copyright registration record, Marilyn Lee is the photographer:

Type of Work: Visual Material
Registration Number / Date: VA0000503665 / 1991-12-23
Title: Penis envy, my ass.
Appears in: No. 14, summer 1991, p. 18-19
Description: Photo.
Notes: Add. ti.: No centerfold.
Copyright Claimant: Marilyn E. Lee, 1961-
Date of Creation: 1990
Date of Publication: 1991-08-29
Copyright Note: C.O. correspondence.
Other Title: No centerfold
No. 14, summer 1991
Names: Lee, Marilyn E., 1961-
posted by hades at 9:29 PM on January 11

And I'm betting it comes from number:inc volume 14, based on that. Their online archive doesn't go as far back as 1991, so I'd contact them for information on back issues.
posted by hades at 9:32 PM on January 11

Just a guess, but the photographer might be this Marilyn Lee who's an art professor in North Dakota but got a photography degree in Memphis.

Her email is in the faculty directory
posted by interplanetjanet at 9:42 PM on January 11

Now I'm sure it's her. This page says she was the treasurer for Numbers, Inc., where Hades found the photo was printed..
posted by interplanetjanet at 9:45 PM on January 11

Oh, good find!
posted by hades at 10:06 PM on January 11

Nice job, you two.
posted by dinger at 2:12 AM on January 12

Wow! Thanks to all for your quick and extremely helpful replies!
posted by cheapskatebay at 6:04 AM on January 12

You're welcome!
posted by interplanetjanet at 2:29 PM on January 12