The Obscenity Trial Over Ron Boise’s Kama Sutra Sculptures
Despite its longstanding reputation for being a city where anything goes, and whose libertine attitudes draw folks from around the world, eager to let their freak flag fly, San Francisco’s history is nevertheless dotted with more than a few episodes of rather astoundingly prudish nonsense. Most people know, for instance, about Lenny Bruce being unable to get through a performance in San Francisco without getting arrested, and certainly about Ferlinghetti’s prosecution on obscenity charges when a US Customs officer declared Howl and Other Poems “not fit for children.”
Somehow lesser known is the case of Ron Boise, whose sculptures evidently caused such dismay among certain uptight individuals that the police raided the Vorpal Gallery (located in what is now Kerouac Alley) where they were being shown, confiscated the pieces, and placed the gallery’s owner, artist Muldoon Elder, under arrest on charges of offering “lewd objects for sale.”
Growing up in Colorado and Montana, Boise’s father had taught him welding. The art of sculpture he taught himself. Boise found an abundant and inexpensive source of materials in scrap metal, old tools, parts, and particularly junked cars. From this tarnished fodder Boise crafted figures with a simplicity and exquisiteness that according to Elder, even SFPD Captain Charles Barca, who stopped by to photograph the pieces the day before the raid, remarked: “Isn’t he marvelous! Look at the intricate way the sculptor created those tiny hands. It’s a miracle that anyone can weld like that!”
The offending artwork was a series of eleven small figures made from sheet metal, posed in various acts of erotic frolickery as depicted in the Kama Sutra. Sensing that the seemingly cordial visit from the police was prelude to harassment (in part because Barca had been forthcoming to Elder that his pictures were for the District Attorney’s office to determine whether the sculptures were indeed obscene), Elder’s girlfriend, Joy, contacted Channel 7 News, who sent out a cameraman the following morning. As he was being placed under arrest, Elder said to the news crew: “You see murder and horrible crime on television, smut on the news stands, the portrayal of violence accepted everywhere and yet they call it a crime to depict a simple act of tender love…”
Ironically, another of Boise’s pieces also displayed at Vorpal—a parody of WWII “Uncle Sam Wants You!” posters, but a full-sized representation of President Harry Truman, depicted naked and androgynous—didn’t warrant the same attention, nor even so much as a snapshot from Barca. The piece was apparently made as revenge for Truman’s decree having kept Boise on Guam for two more years past his tour of duty with the Navy, where he’d worked as a welder.
Still, the case did go to trial, where Muldoon Elder was represented by an attorneys Ephriam Margolin and Marshall Krause, provided by the American Civil Liberties Union. Art historians Walter Horn and Catherine Caldwell were called to testify in defense of Boise, and also Alan Watts, whose statement to the court appeared in the June 1965 edition of The Evergreen Review:
“Ron Boise is a sculptor who is doing something which I call ‘pushing the line back’ – in the same way as great modern writers, such as Henry Miller, D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce have been pushing the line back in literature. We haven’t seen much of it in sculpture – or in painting…
“Here we see an extraordinary example of getting away with murder but in a fantastically good way. But it’s not actually getting away with murder; it’s something much worse than that; it’s getting away with love…Very rarely, unless we are familiar with Hindu sculpture or Tibetan painting can we see anything like this done with superb mastery.”
Watts expanded upon this statement, writing an introduction to the case titled “Pushing the Line Back,” accompanied by photographs of the seized sculptures by Stephen Northup, which appeared in Notes from Underground, edited by John Bryan (publisher of Open City), along with contributions from Kirby Doyle, Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, John Rechy, Ron Boise, Kenneth Patchen, Lenore Kandel, Charles Bukowski, David Meltzer, Bob Kaufman, Grover Lewis, and Anselm Hollo.
Elder was found not guilty. Yet much like other, similar obscenity cases of its era, it became a cause célèbre for the counterculture, and daily accounts of the trial were covered by the San Francisco Chronicle, Examiner, and Call Bullietin. Photographs featuring the Kama Sutra sculptures were sold as postcards and calendars. One of the sculptures themselves was acquired by the Hip Pocket bookstore in Santa Cruz, and displayed over the front door. Another graced the roof of the Anchor Steam brewery until Fritz Maytag bought the company in 1965. But as Jim Wolpman notes: “Unfortunately, the erotic sensationalism and general furor stirred up by the Kama Sutra episode has resulted, over the years, in neglect of Boise’s other—to my mind—more significant work.”
Ron Boise’s many other works included the “Thunder Machine,” a large percussion instrument designed to be played from the inside, and painted in swirling psychedelic designs by Joseph Lysowski. The Thunder Machine made appearances at the San Francisco Trips Festival, the Altamont Free Concert, and the Acid Tests put on by the Merry Pranksters, of whom Boise was a member.
Tragically, Boise died in 1966 from heart failure, possibly as a result of an infection made worse by a recurrence of rheumatic fever from childhood. He was 34.