Ralph Ginzburg; Pushed Envelope as a Publisher

The son of a Russian immigrant housepainter, Mr. Ginzburg was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Oct. 28, 1929. He received an accounting degree from City College of New York in 1949, but editing the school paper led him to pursue journalism.

He went on to become promotions manager at Look magazine and articles editor of Esquire magazine. A few years later, he wrote for Harper's one of the last full interviews with the teenage chess master Bobby Fischer.

In his spare time, he tried to write a biography of Anthony Comstock, the 19th-century moral reformer who gave his name to laws suppressing the transit of obscene matter through mails. The research led Mr. Ginzburg to historic files on pornography and to publishing "An Unhurried View of Erotica" (1958), which sold more than 125,000 copies in hardcover and 200,000 in paperback.

On Valentine's Day 1962, he rolled out his first copy of Eros. He hired Herb Lubalin, the internationally regarded graphic designer, to handle the layout and design.

The magazine had illustrations by Degas mingling with pictures of male prostitutes in Bombay and a suggestive photo essay of an interracial couple. One article warned against rigorous lovemaking for the fainthearted.

A letter-writing campaign to the postmaster general eventually led Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to greenlight a case against the publisher.

Mr. Ginzburg later worked on other publishing ventures, including an arts and politics magazine called Avant Garde.

Tiring of the constant demands of running a business, he learned photography in the mid-1980s and sold his work to many New York newspapers and magazines. His work culminated in "I Shot New York" (1999), a chronicle of city life that earned him favorable comparisons to Weegee.

In the book, he found it hard to resist including pictures of former president Gerald R. Ford that showed him in embarrassing poses. He told the Associated Press that Ford, while a Michigan congressman, called for Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas to resign because Douglas had published an article about folk singing in Avant Garde.

"I got the last laugh," Mr. Ginzburg said.

Survivors include his wife of 49 years, Shoshana Brown Ginzburg of Manhattan, N.Y.; three children, Shepherd Ginzburg of Ventura, Calif., Lark Kuhta of Hewitt, N.J., and Bonnie Erbe Leckar of Falls Church, the host of the public television show "To the Contrary"; and three grandchildren.