The Art of Paul Cadmus: "What I Believe"

"What I Believe" (1947-1948) by Paul Cadmus (died December 12, 1999) was inspired by E.M. Forster's essay of the same name, in which the novelist expresses his faith in personal relations and his concept of a spiritual aristocracy "of the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human condition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos."

Paul Cadmus, glbtq online encyclopedia 

Note the happy, sun-drenched same-sex couples on the left, and the miserable mixed sex couples on the right.

More by Paul Cadmus below the fold:

Bachardy, Don. American portrait painter

b. May 18, 1934

American portrait painter

"Much of the public attention garnered by American painter and draftsman Don Bachardy has been the result of his long relationship with the late novelist and memoirist Christopher Isherwood. But Bachardy is an accomplished artist in his own right, and his talent has earned him considerable success on his own, as evidenced by his frequent solo exhibits, inclusion in many museum collections, and numerous reproductions and collections of his work.

Nonetheless, Bachardy has forthrightly acknowledged that the encouragement and support of Isherwood--the most frequent subject of his drawings and paintings--helped him gain the confidence to become a full-time artist. Moreover, Isherwood's distinguished reputation as a writer and his contacts in the film industry gained Bachardy access to many of the celebrities whom he was to draw."

-glbtq >> arts >> Bachardy, Don

Flores “Flo” McGarrell

b. August 31, 1974
d. January 12, 2010

American artist, filmmaker, writer and arts administrator, who described himself as "a total gender mash up (beard, miniskirt, etc.)" and "as a non-passing transperson." Born biologically female, McGarrell identified strongly with androgyny since childhood, and the transgender and queer (or radical queer) community as an adult. He began formally identifying as a male in 2003-04. This gender reassessment was brought about through a limited amount of hormone therapy—not elective surgery however—and was part of an intellectual journey into radical politics which was, in turn, related to the artist's philosophy and output.

McGarrell was born Flora McGarrell to expatriate artist parents in Rome, where his father James McGarrell was the recipient of a Fulbright grant, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio in Italy. His mother, Ann, is a writer, poet and translator. They moved back to America when Flo was 8 years old and now live in Newbury, Vermont. Flo McGarrell received a B.F.A. in Fibers and an M.A. in Digital Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, 1992–1998. In 1997 he co-founded Little Big Bang, a non-profit arts organization which performed/exhibited for four years in such diverse venues as the Baltimore Museum of Art, the American Visionary Art Museum, as well as local galleries, festivals, and the streets.

After earning his first master's degree he taught video and electronic arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and at the Baltimore School for the Arts. In 2004 he received an M.F.A. in Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where his hybrid skills in sculpture and digital craft were utilized to create inflatable spaces, with light, sound, and video projection. In 2007 he was part of the Roswell Artist in Residence Program where he experimented in sustainable living as sculpture.

Since his youth McGarrell was fascinated with Haiti and Haitian culture and in 2008 he took of the position of director of the art center FOSAJ in Jacmel, a city famed for its art located on the southern coast of Haiti. FOSAJ was founded in 2003 by a wealthy local family and its mission is to revive the international market for locally made art, which collapsed due to decades of political instability. McGarrell served as director of the center until his death and during his tenure he develop a relationship with local artists and the community. Fosaj board member Regine Boucard said of McGarrell that, "Everybody loved him — the artists, the students, the community. And he sort of understood the Haitians." 

An early interest in metalsmithing over time, developed into a commitment to installation art with a focus on political concerns and ecology. Most of McGarrell's mature work utilized strongly color-coordinated plastics to create interior/exterior spaces, and living plants to create functioning vegetable gardens, also situated indoors and out. McGarrell's installations were created, as much as feasible, from discarded, recycled materials. His gardens functioned from recycled grey water and included hands-on, instructive material on creating compost at home and the artist's own recipes for meals designed from both a nutritional standpoint and their palatability. This teaching material, as well as most of McGarrell's other writing, was distributed freely, in accordance with the artist's dedication to free copyright, or Creative Commons approach to intellectual property.

McGarrell was the art director of the film, Maggots and Men, an experimental retelling of the story of the 1921 uprising of the Kronstadt sailors in post-revolutionary Russia.

On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, a devastating magnitude 7.0 M earthquake centered approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of Port-au-Prince, leveled buildings throughout Haiti, including the "Peace of Mind" Hotel in Jacmel. McGarrell had just dropped off his godfather in Port-au-Prince and had stopped off at the hotel on his way to the FOSAJ center, where he both lived and worked. He was sitting with a visiting friend and fellow artist, Sue Frame, when the earthquake hit and was killed as the building collapsed on top of him. He was apparently killed instantly. Frame ran out at the first tremor; McGarrell hesitated briefly, perhaps concerned for his laptop computer.

"A Night in the Desert", George Quaintance

"Night in the Desert--1951" is one of the first of the iconic paintings of George Quaintance, who died November 8, 1957.

Although now obscure, George Quaintance was one of the most influential figures in a unique American style of art and one of the most flamboyant and interesting gay characters for four decades of the twentieth century.

Though few people outside the gay world know it, Quaintance was a pioneer of male physique painting. This genre heralded a new American gay consciousness in the early 1950s.

David Hockney (1937 - ), British. Artist

b. 9th July, 1937

"David Hockney, who immigrated permanently to America in 1963, painted lyrical portraits of gay couples and individuals. Both in depictions of incidents from everyday life (such as Domestic Scene, Los Angeles, 1963), in portraits of friends such as Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, and in commissioned portraits (such as The Conversation, showing Henry Geldzahler and Raymond Foy, 1980), Hockney subtly revealed the intimacies and complexities of committed relationships. In these works, the (homo)sexuality of the subjects is evident, but it is not emphasized."

glbtq >> arts >> American Art: Gay Male, 1900-1969:

The Conversation – Jasmine Gauthier

Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy

Domestic Scene, Los Angeles, 1963

Peter Getting Out Of Nick's Pool