Raymond DeGray Van Cleef (June 22, 1910 – May 26, 1964) was an American

artist's model An art model is a person who poses, often nude, for visual artists as part of the creative process, providing a reference for the human body in a work of art. As an occupation, modeling requires the often strenuous ' physical work' of holding ...

, magazine editor, physical culturist, and columnist.

Life

Van Cleef took up weightlifting in Siegmund Klein's gym. Van Cleef was an

. He was "once in demand by sculptors as a model for Grecian gods." He may have been the original small scale model for

Prometheus In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning "forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titans, Titan. He is best known for defying the Olympian gods by taking theft of fire, fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technol ...

, a sculpture designed by

Paul Manship Paul Howard Manship (December 25, 1885 – January 31, 1966) was an American Sculpture, sculptor. He consistently created mythological pieces in a classical style, and was a major force in the Art Deco in the United States, Art Deco movement. ...

Rockefeller Center Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commerce, commercial buildings covering between 48th Street (Manhattan), 48th Street and 51st Street (Manhattan), 51st Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The 14 original Art De ...

, even though Leonardo Nole is often credited as the only model. Van Cleef was the owner of a gym in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

. He trained the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The ...

, a baseball team in New York City. He also trained Olympic weightlifters, and he organized weightlifting competitions like the Santa Clara Valley Invitational Tournament in 1963. Van Cleef resided in San Jose with his wife, Virginia, and their two daughters, Lois and Martha. He died of a heart attack, on May 26, 1964, at age 53, at his home in San Jose.

Physical culture

Van Cleef was an associate editor at ''

Strength & Health ''Strength & Health'' was a bodybuilding/fitness/Olympic weightlifting magazine, one of the earliest magazines devoted to fitness and bodybuilding. Until the late 1960s, it was the most popular weightlifting magazine in the United States. Histo ...

'', for which he wrote a column called ''Strong Men Around the World''. In his columns, he wrote about wrist-wrestling competitions and walkathons. Van Cleef was one of the few

vegetarians Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. A person who pra ...

involved in physical culture. He was supportive of the American Vegetarian Convention and in 1949 commented that the vegetarian movement needed to clean itself up by dissociating itself from cultists or those making unrealistic claims.Miller, Laura J. (2017). ''Building Nature's Market: The Business and Politics of Natural Foods''. University of Chicago Press. p. 87.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Van Cleef, Ray 1910 deaths 1964 deaths American artists' models American columnists American magazine editors People associated with physical culture Strength training writers Writers from San Jose, California