Behind the Image: Arnold Schwarzenegger by Thomas Hoepker

In 1977, Thomas Hoepker witnessed a niche subculture that had embedded its way into the Californian coastal zeitgeist, and soon far beyond. Just a year earlier, Stern magazine had published Hoepker’s series on life in communist East Germany. It was in many ways the antithesis of the consumer-happy, tanned and toned Venice Beach, where, if you’d walked through the doors of Gold’s Gym, you’d see a colossal figure who seemed to reign over the rest of the iron-pumping musclemen: the “Austrian Oak,” Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The featured image above by Hoepker is now available as part of the Magnum Editions collection, a series of 8×10″ archival pigment prints in limited editions of 100 each. Shop this limited-edition print and explore more Magnum Editions prints here.

With a seemingly unshakeable confidence and infatuation with physical exertion, the Austrian-born bodybuilder had by then — at age 30 — won six Mr. Olympia championships and three Mr. Universe titles.

Earlier that year, the documentary Pumping Iron was released, centered around Schwarzenegger’s rigorous training routine for Mr. Olympia alongside his competitor, American bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, who would go on to play the Incredible Hulk. “We were like freaks back then,” said Ferrigno. Despite bodybuilding’s obscurity, the documentary proved to be a success, and ushered the sport into the mainstream.

Like Hoepker’s series of portraits of other famous figures — Muhammad Ali, Andy Warhol or Willem de Kooning — the photographer intimates a quality of theirs that complexifies our vision of them.

Behind Schwarzenegger’s pluck and hunger for a lucrative break was a quieter pursuit of finesse; he studied the most aesthetic way to pose — even taking cues from ballerinas — that would allow for flawless transitions in his performance. In 1976, he attended an event to raise money for Pumping Iron called “Articulate Muscle: The Male Body in Art” at the Whitney Museum in New York, where he flexed in front of thousands of attendees.

“Good bodybuilders have the same mind when it comes to sculpting that a sculptor has,” he says in Pumping Iron. While most images of Schwarzenegger at the time picture his chiseled physique from the front with a glorified, herculean bravado, this featured image by Hoepker shows a double biceps pose from behind, softly highlighting his definition and symmetry using light and shadow.

By 1977, Schwarzenegger had stepped away from competitive bodybuilding after winning his sixth Mr. Olympia two years prior. Hoepker took the opportunity to photograph him in his free time, capturing the way he interacted with people, his mischievous glint, his afternoons at the beach, what he ate for breakfast, and even a visit with his mother.

Three years later, in 1980, Schwarzenegger would come out of retirement and win his final Mr. Olympia title, then quickly maneuvered his career into Hollywood, and finally the political sphere. Hoepker’s 1977 portraits offer a more intimate glimpse behind Schwarzenegger’s persona in the bodybuilding world before he propelled himself towards international fame.

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Explore Thomas Hoepker’s collection here.