In the early 1980s a tiny publishing company based in London but with links to Nürnberg in Germany, S&K Ltd, published two illustrated books of erotica, then disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. One, from 1983, was a book of fairly mediocre BDSM drawings, the other from 1984 a unique portfolio of paintings of large women enjoying sex. It was titled Kugelrunde, so was clearly intended mostly for sale in Germany, ‘runde Kugeln’ translating as ‘round spheres’. The brief introduction gave the source of the images as an unknown Czech artist working around 1920; there is nothing in the style to suggest otherwise.

Whoever created the images reproduced in Kugelrunde was no amateur; the observation and composition is excellent. And the participants, who must be based on real models, appear to be having a good time. This is a rare example of the positive early portrayal of big-and-beautiful.

Unfortunately the quality of the colour reproduction of the printed portfolio was poor, with imperfect colour registration and a tendency to make everything too red, so unless someone knows the current location of the originals we shall never see them as they were originally created.