Tag: Gay

Two ladies in courtly dresses that drag on the ground lean against each other in elegant poses. The one nearest the foreground holds out an apple in her left hand and wears blue and white while the woman behind her wears black and white. Both have elaborate gold headgear. At the top of the image, which appears to be on paper board pasted into a book that is now peeling away, it reads "Two Ladies of the Court."
Two Ladies of the Court in Saint Joan

Two Ladies of the Court in Saint Joan

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Two ladies in courtly dresses that drag on the ground lean against each other in elegant poses. The one nearest the foreground holds out an apple in her left hand and wears blue and white while the woman behind her wears black and white. Both have elaborate gold headgear. At the top of the image, which appears to be on paper board pasted into a book that is now peeling away, it reads "Two Ladies of the Court."

Artist: Charles Ricketts
Media: Watercolour on board
Date & Location: 1924
Image Source: Picryl

Significance to Queer Art History

Charles Ricketts was a British painter, designer, and publisher. He met his partner Charles Shannon at the City and Guilds Technical Art School in south London in 1882 when they were both teenagers. They moved in together in 1888 and lived with each other for the rest of their lives. They also had sexual and emotional relationships with other men as well as women while living together.

Dear Old Chap… At each meal time they plonk down a plate of strawberries which make me think of you–no, this is not quite accurate. I really think of the strawberries. Only when they are done, I think of thee.”

– Charles Ricketts to Charles Shannon in a letter from Florence

Ricketts and Shannon were both individually practicing artists, but they also created the art magazine, The Dial, as well as Vale Press, together.

Ricketts and Shannon were responsible for the illustration and design of many of Oscar Wilde’s books and had a long-term friendship with Wilde who himself is an often-cited queer icon.

They also counted among their friends Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper. Bradley and Cooper were long-time lovers (living together for about 40 years) and collaborators. They were also (making things a bit more complicated) aunt and niece. Together the women published their writing (some inspired by the poems of Sappho of Lesbos) under the shared pseudonym, Michael Fields. Ricketts and Shannon designed some of their books. The couple also asked Ricketts and Shannon to help them find and furnish “a home for [their] marriage.”

The watercolour Two Ladies of the Court by Ricketts was painted as one of the plates for the book edition of the play Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw. Itself a scene of intimacy between two women, this watercolour is also for a play about one of the most famous figures from medieval history (Joan of Arc) known for defying binary constructions of gender. It also has a counterpart in a plate in the same book of two “gentlemen ushers of the court.”

These two ushers even have pointy shoes, which have a queer medieval history of their own, but that is for another post x

After the Ricketts and Shannon passed away within six years of each other, their friend, Edmund Dulac, painted them together as two monks in this double portrait.

A painting of two monks in a meadow with a pale blue sky behind them. Both have halos which are gold to match the gold arching frame above them that connects to the frame. They both face the viewer. Their arms touch in the middle suggesting their intimacy.

❦ Resources ❦
Charles Ricketts. Self-Portrait : Taken from the Letters & Journals of Charles Ricketts. Collected and compiled by Thomas Sturge Moore , edited by Cecil Lewis. London: P. Davies, 1939.

Matt Cook. Queer Domesticities : Homosexuality and Home Life in Twentieth-Century London. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Sarah Parker. “Poets and lovers: the two women who were Michael Field.” The Conversation. 31 January 2020. Accessed 25 March 2024.

A colourful papercut by Xiyadie. It shows four abstracted figures, all with phalluses, in what appears to be a garden. Two red ornamental doors with yellow studs and feline decorative handles stand open behind the figures. The flowers and the branches that span above the figures seem to sprout from the figures themselves.
GATE 门, 1999

GATE 门, 1999

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Artist: Xiyadie
Media: Papercut, Water-Based Dye, and Chinese Pigments using Xuan Paper
Date & Location: 1999, Beijing
Image Source: Nome Gallery. Photo by Gianmarco Bresadola.

Significance to Queer Art History

Xiyadie (pseudonym) is the first known queer artist to carry on the traditional practice of papercutting in China, which has its roots in the Eastern Han Dynasty (Bao, 157 and Nome Gallery). He was born in Heyang County, Shaanxi Province and is now living in Beijing. His artwork often explores the lives of queer people who are living in rural China specifically. His pseudonym, which means ‘Siberian Butterfly,’ was chosen so that the butterfly surviving in a harsh environment could signify “the difficulty of living a gay life in a sexually conservative society (Bao, 158).”

As Bao explores in the article cited below, Xiyadie’s work also blurs categories of ‘craft’ and ‘art,’ which in itself might be read as a queer defiance of categories.

A colourful papercut by Xiyadie. It shows four abstracted figures, all with phalluses, in what appears to be a garden. Two red ornamental doors with yellow studs and feline decorative handles stand open behind the figures. The flowers and the branches that span above the figures seem to sprout from the figures themselves.
Xiyadie, GATE 门, 1999

Resources

Bao, Hongwei. Queer China: Lesbian and Gay Literature and Visual Culture Under Postsocialism. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.

Nome Gallery. Xiyadie. 2016. https://nomegallery.com/artists/xiyadie/.

A coloured sketch of a bare-chested Indigenous man wearing a red necklace on white paper with a white man's arm wrapping around from behind to touch his chest.
Did you meet any malagas? (book cover)

Did you meet any malagas? (book cover)

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Artist: Gary Lee
Media: Sketch on paper
Date & Location: 1993, Larrakia Territory, Darwin, Australia
Where can I see this artwork?: Book cover of Did you meet any malagas?: A homosexual history of Australia’s tropical capital by Dino Hodge

Significance to Queer Art History

‘Malagas’ means ‘men.’ Dino Hodge’s Did you meet any malagas? is a collection of oral histories intended to tell a ‘gay history’ of Larrakia territory/Darwin that recognizes local, context-specific intersections of sexuality, gender, colonialism, and race. It addresses as well the objectification of ‘blackfellas’ by ‘whitefellas’ in the local gay community. Hodge writes that “it would be the late 1980s before Aboriginal gay men felt comfortable attending Darwin Gay Society Gatherings (37).”

Gary Lee was the first Indigenous person to collaborate with the Northern Territory AIDS Council, and he is a friend and collaborator to Hodge. He is Larrakia with Chinese and Filipino heritage, and Hodge writes that Lee designed a book cover that: “honoured blackfella experiences… his interracial relationship with his partner is represented by a whitefella arm reaching across his chest and the hand resting lightly above his heart. Here the whitefella presence is subordinated to a blackfella declaration of personhood (41).”

A coloured sketch of a bare-chested Indigenous man wearing a red necklace on white paper with a white man's arm wrapping around from behind to touch his chest.

Resources and Image Credits

Dino Hodge. “Faces of Queer-Aboriginality in Australia,” in Queer Objects ed. Chris Brickell and Judith Collard. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2019.

Hodge, Dino. Colouring the Rainbow: Blak Queer and Trans Perspectives: Life Stories and Essays by First Nations People of Australia. 2015.

A painting with Adam reclined on a grassy slop reaching his left arm out towards God. God floats in a ballooning red cloth reaching for Adam with his right hand. Other figures fill the cloak behind God, and all of the figures are muscular and well-defined. The sky is a grey-blue. This painting is a detail near the center of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling.
Creation of Adam — Sistine Ceiling (1508-1512)

Creation of Adam — Sistine Ceiling (1508-1512)

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Date & Location:
1508-1512 in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Rome, Italy.

Artist:
Michelangelo Buonarroti

Media:
Fresco (paint applied to still-wet plaster, once dried it becomes integral to the wall)

Significance to Queer Art History:
Michelangelo has become iconic as a “gay man” with a place in the “Canon” of Art History. Renaissance Italy was a very homosocial culture for aristocratic men, and it was public knowledge that younger men (such as apprentices) often had intimate and sexual relationships with their mentors. Michelangelo was openly a part of this culture. Artistic expressions of his desire for other men have also survived for us to enjoy today. Especially, his poetry and drawings for Tommaso de’ Cavelieri have become famous for their passion. The kissing men in the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel are likewise relevant as representations of queer desire as well as Michelangelo’s concern for his soul.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Last Judgement (detail), 1536-1541, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Rome. Fresco.

He is also an inspiration for contemporary queer artists in their own projects to reclaim and retell queer “art hirstories.” Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin is a Swedish photographer. Her work centres trans men and women, non-binary folx, lesbian and gay couples, and drag queens. She often centres them in scenes inspired by medieval and early modern renderings of biblical stories. One example, is her version of “The Creation of Adam” (“Creation”) from 2001. Her powerful reference to Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel reclaims his work for contemporary queer audiences.

Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin, Creation, 2001. Copyright @ Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin.

References:
William E. Wallace. Michelangelo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Grant Wood (1891-1942)

Grant Wood (1891-1942)

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Arnold Comes of Age

Artist: Grant Wood

Date & Location: 1930, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Media: Oil Painting

Where can I see this artwork?: Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, Nebraska

Previously part of Hide/Seek: Differences in American Portraiture in association with the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery

Significance to Queer Art History:

Painted in the same year as American Gothic, this piece shows a homoerotic view from Wood. The central figure being Arnold Pyle, the artists assistant and a possible love interest as Grant surrounded himself with other men who looked similar. With a background depicting nude male figures bathing against an idyllic setting like Wood’s other paintings, this painting suggests sexuality and the coming of age of a man as the title ensues.

Resources and Further Reading

Arnold Comes of Age. Smithsonian Institution, npg.si.edu/object/npg_N-38.

“Critics’ Picks: Grant Wood’s Painting ‘Arnold Comes of Age,’ ‘Monroe’ on DVD and Queen Elizabeth II.” The Seattle Times, The Seattle Times Company, 3 June 2012, www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/critics-picks-grant-woods-painting-arnold-comes-of-age-monroe-on-dvd-and-queen-elizabeth-ii/.

Terry. “American Gothic: Grant Wood.” Gay Influence: Gay & Bisexual Men of Importance, 2014, gayinfluence.blogspot.com/2011/12/american-gothic-grant-wood.html.

Grotta dell’Addaura Cave Painting (11,000 BCE)

Grotta dell’Addaura Cave Painting (11,000 BCE)

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Date & Location: 10,000 BCE in Mount Pellegrino in Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy.

Media: Painting

Significance to Queer Art History:

This cave painting was found in 1953 in Mount Pellegrino by archaeologist Jole Bovio Marconi after an explosion uncovered part of the site during the Allied Invasion of Sicily in World War II. The writings of Marconi describe her own interpretation of the depicted scene to be homoerotic in nature due to the male figures erect penises parallel to each other.

There are several interpretations of the scene depicted:

  1. The figures in a circle are tied in rope for a sacrificial ritual and splayed in arched-back positions by two shaman-like figures at the top with bird masks honoring the bird goddess.
  2. A homoerotic ritual conducted by the two shamans with the lines representing energy and/or male ejaculation at or after puberty.

Resources and Further Reading:

“Addaura Cave Engravings (11,000 BCE).” A-Z Of PREHISTORIC ART, www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/addaura-cave.htm. Accessed 15 July 2018.

Penczak, Christopher. “Before the Pen and the Plow.” In Gay Witchcraft: Empowering the Tribe, 10-12. Weiser Books, 2003.

Purpura, Giovanni. “Addaura.” http://www1.unipa.it/dipstdir/portale/ARTICOLI%20GIOVANNI/Addaura.pdf.

 

 

Mike Caffee- Fe-Be’s Leather David (1966)

Mike Caffee- Fe-Be’s Leather David (1966)

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Featured Artwork: Fe-Be’s Leather David

Date & Location: 1966 in San Francisco, CA (USA)

Media: Plaster

Where can I see this artwork?: The GLBT History Museum in San Francisco, CA (USA)

Significance to Queer Art History: 
Created originally on commission for Fe-Be’s, the first leather bar on Folsom Street in San Francisco, CA.
This was a re-creation of Michelangelo’s iconic “David” as a leather biker icon. The iconic figure later appeared in other plaster and even bronze statues at bars around the United States.

Michelangelo’s David for reference: 

Resources & Further Reading: 

Caffee, Mike. Fe-Be’s Leather David. 1966. GLBT Historical Society Museum, San Francisco, CA.

“The Leather David or Fe-Be’s Statue.” The Leather David or Fe-Be’s Statue. Accessed August 2017. http://leatherdavid.blogspot.com/.

Caravaggio (1571-1610)

Caravaggio (1571-1610)

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Featured Artwork: The Musicians

Media: Oil Paint

Date and location: 1595 in Rome

Where can I find this artwork?: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, NY (USA)

Significance to Queer Art History: Caravaggio’s work, characterized by his dramatic chiaroscuro technique (chiaroscuro uses dramatic lights and darks to model the figures coming out of the shadows in a “theatrical spotlight” manner) were sensual and dreamlike. This work in particular hosts a homosocial event of music and its connections to love, as signified by the cupid on the left side of the painting.

 

Resources & Further Reading: 

“Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) | The Musicians | The Met.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accessed August 2017. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435844.

Saslow, James M. Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York, NY: Viking, 2000. 114-118.

 

Muhammad Qasim- Shah Abbas I with a Page

Muhammad Qasim- Shah Abbas I with a Page

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Artist: Muhammad Qasim
Media: Miniature Ink and paint illustration
Date and location: 1627 in the Persian Empire (Now Iran)
Where can I find this artwork?: The Louvre in Paris France in Islamic Art: The Modern Empires (1500–1800)

Significance to Queer Art History

This miniature illustration depicts Shah Abbas I of Persia and his page boy interacting and sharing wine. The imagery is soft and intimate as the page holds the wine flask erect towards the Shah’s crotch and almost embraces him. In Islam, sex was a positive thing. Sex between men was even held as a “spiritual bliss”, albeit not officially condoned. The small Arabic lettering on the right hand side gestures at the bliss of wine and lovers, reading:

“May life provide all that you desire from three lips: those of your lover, the river, and the cup.”

All three of these things may be featured if the tree setting is in fact, near a river. This illustration also brings forward an allusion to the Qur’an’s view of paradise with all the blisses of life from the poem in tact.

Resource(s)

Parkinson, R.B. A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World. London: The British Museum Press, 2013, 73.

Saslow, James M. Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York, NY: Viking, 2000. 146-147.

Summers, Claude J. “Erotic Miniature Painting.” In The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 2004.

“Work Shah Abbas I and His Page.” Louvre Museum | Paris. Accessed August 11, 2017. http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/shah-abbas-i-and-his-page.

Transparency note: This page was reformatted to match later posts, the name of the artist was added, the spelling of Qur’an was changed from ‘Koran’ in keeping with current practice, and the resource A Little Gay History was added by Baylee Woodley on March 11, 2022.

Herbert Singleton- Love that not Love

Herbert Singleton- Love that not Love

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Featured Artwork:  Love That Not Love

Date and Location: 1990 in New Orleans, Louisiana (USA)

Media: Acrylic paint on carved wood

Where can I see this artwork?: Displayed in the past at the New Orleans Old Mint Museum as part of the exhibition, titled: Soul of the South: Selections from the Gitter-Yellen Collection. On display: November 20, 2015 – May 28, 2017

Herbert Singleton (1945-2007) , a self-taught artist from New Orleans, LA (USA) painted this to show the messages considered taboo (yet clear in the carved figures loving embrace) in the 1990s. Love between white men was just on the brink of hitting major popular culture and television at this time, while love between black men and men of color was scant, hence the title: ‘Love That Not Love”.

Sources & Further Reading:
“Herbert Singleton” Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery. Accessed August 07, 2017. http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=7431.
MacCash, Doug. “Herbert Singleton, Noted Folk Artist Dies.” NOLA.com. August 02, 2007. Accessed August 07, 2017. http://blog.nola.com/dougmaccash/2007/08/herbert_singleton_noted_folk_a.html.
Unknown- Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple

Unknown- Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple

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Featured Artwork: Presentation of the Virgin by Fra Carnevale

Date & Location: 1465 in Florence, Italy

Media: Tempera and oil paint

Significance to Queer Art History:
The male couple in the middle reflects “temptation” and modern relationships in Florence with their modern dress and the figure on the left (almost half way up the painting) “chucking” the other man under the chin in suggestive fashion. This was considered an erotic gesture and perhaps a lash at the purity of the rest of the scene that alluded to some of the contemporary lives of young men in Florence.

Close-up view of couple:

Where can I view this artwork?: The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA (USA) (Museum Council Gallery (Gallery 254))

Resources & Further Reading:

“Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple.” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. February 05, 2017. Accessed August 15, 2017. http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/presentation-of-the-virgin-in-the-temple-32587.

Saslow, James M. Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York, NY: Viking, 2000. 85-87.

 

Peithinos Painter- Peithinos Cup

Peithinos Painter- Peithinos Cup

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Featured Artwork: Peithinos Cup

Date and Location: (525-475 BCE) Athens, Greece

Significance to Queer Art History: This cup is a kylix vessel, used for male centered social drinking of wine. Most kylix vessels had sexual or humorous depictions of individuals on the inside (a surprise for finishing the drink, if you will) and outsides. This kylix vessel, signed by the painter, Peithinos, shows heterosexual and homosexual courtship on the exterior.

Where can I see this artwork?: Currently in the Antikenmuseen’s Collection in Berlin, Germany.

Resources & Further Reading:

“200977, Berlin, Antikensammlung, Berlin, Schloss Charlottenburg, F2279.” Provenance – The Classical Art Research Centre. Accessed August 08, 2017. http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/XDB/ASP/recordDetails.asp?id=5C03CFDF-D841-432A-8B2C-FAAD6697E456&noResults=&recordCount=&databaseID=&search=.

Saslow, James M. Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York, NY: Viking, 2000. 21-27.