Jan Gay was ahead of her time--an openly queer woman who spearhead some of the first studi of lbians. She's largely been fotten. Until now.
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JAN GAY
* jan gay artist *
Des before a formalized queer activist movement popped up, a rearcher named Jan Gay cid to seek liberatn a different way. For Gay, the rearch was a sort of Trojan horse. Gay saw her study as a subtler type of activism—a way to document the many shas of queer inty, but also to show the world that queer people were far more like the rt of society than they had been given cred.
What ma her rearch all the more radil is that Gay herself was openly a lbian. Today, we have many ways to remember Gay: as a picture-book thor, a nudist lear, and the one-time roommate of Andy Warhol. In honor of the 100th anniversary of her birth this year, I have renstcted parts of Gay’s life through material held at the Library of Congrs and the Johns Hopks Medil Archiv, as well as om letters sent to me om a fay member of Gay’s.
JAN GAYE
Jan Gaye is famo for her former spoe, the late Marv Gaye. Marv Gaye was an Amerin soul sger and songwrer. Jan is an actrs known for her work Lobster Man, Tavis Sey, and Marv Gaye. They met when she was 17 and Marv was 33. Dpe their age gap, they got along and madly fell love. They married October 1977. * jan gay artist *
The glimps of Gay’s legacy highlight how early queer people envisned rearch as a way to advote for their muny—and how they were nohels erased om that From Harper's BAZAARFour upl of women pose for a photo, . 1910 (Photo by Kirn Vtage Stock/Corbis via Getty Imag)Kirn Vtage Stock//Getty ImagJan Gay was born wh the name Helen Reman on Febary 14, 1902 Leipzig, Germany.
Bgraphi and analysis of work by Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgenr+ intified artists, or works associated wh LGBT+ topics. * jan gay artist *
Gay’s father, Ben Reman, was a proment doctor and anarchist activist, who also had a hab of womanizg. Gay was born while her mother revered om mental health Gay moved to the Uned Stat, she studied at Northwtern Universy.
In 1927, to distance herself om her father, she changed her name to Jan Gay—eher as a nod to the dual meang of the word gay, or, more likely, as a reference to her mother’s fay. (Gay was her maternal grandfather’s middle name. ) Around the same time, she met Eleanor Byrn, an illtrator who eventually took on the psdonym Zhenya Gay.