Newly Published Portras Document a Century of Gay Men's Relatnships | Smart News | Smhsonian Magaze

Contents:

• PHOTOGRAPHS REVEAL EVERYDAY LIFE OF GAY UPL THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY
• PNEERG PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY LIFE THE 1960S
• NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE

PHOTOGRAPHS REVEAL EVERYDAY LIFE OF GAY UPL THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Portras of pri: Touchg photographs reveal everyday life of gay upl the early 20th Century - before the closet door opened French screenwrer Sébastien Lifshz spent 20 years llectg photos om flea markets and garage salThey proudly portray alternative sexualy the U. And Europe at a time when many had to hi their te feelgs'The need to keep a memory of their love was stronger than the disapproval of neighbourhood photo lab', he said Published: 12:46 BST, 29 June 2014 | Updated: 14:47 BST, 30 June 2014 Advertisement It seems ordary enough - a photo album of upl exchangg everyday affectn their garns, their kchens, bed and the what mak the imag so touchg is that the upl were almost certaly gay, at a time when to be so was illegal many parts of the wtern screenwrer Sébastien Lifshz took more than 20 years to amass his llectn om flea markets and garage sal, where he beme fascated wh the reee happs of people who were often outsts society. Careee: French screenwrer Sébastien Lifshz spent more than 20 years llectg hundreds of photos om flea markets and garage sal which portrayed gay upl their everyday liv - at a time when what they did behd closed doors was illegal.

Mr Lifshz said he was fascated by their wealth of love and affectn Ambiguo: Bee he never knew the upl himself, Mr Lifshz uld not be sure if they were gay, bisexual or transgenr, or simply revellg sexual eedom Bee he never knew the upl himself, he uld not be sure if they were gay, bisexual or transgenr, or simply revellg sexual ambiguy and eedom. 'What astonished me was that their middle-class appearance didn’t match the act: the act of producg an image of homosexual love at a time when discretn was the norm, ' he said. “I was 19, vulnerable, young and puttg my own inty together, ” says photographer Anthony Friedk when reflectg on his first project, The Gay Essay, which documents gay culture Los Angel and San Francis between 1969-1972.

What started, as a self-assigned project for a young photographer growg up Hollywood has now bee one of the most thentic portras of gay life Ameri om this perd. At the time, most pictns of gay men and women mastream media were found salac newspaper and tabloid articl, all of them reported om a murky distance. But The Gay Essay really began while he explored the Los Angel Gay Communy Servic Center where he met Morris Kight and Don Kilhefner, two men who ran the programs there and found the Gay Liberatn Front Los Angel 1969 where they mobilized the muny agast the LAPD’s harassment of homosexuals.

PNEERG PHOTOGRAPHS OF GAY LIFE THE 1960S

“In The Gay Essay I wanted to celebrate the gays that were livg openly, ” pecially at a time, the early days of the gay movement, followg the Stonewall rts. ” In 2014, The Gay Essay was first shown s entirety at the De Young Mm San Francis and was published as a book by the Fe Arts Mm of San Francis and Yale Universy Prs.

“Everythg I love about photography is the gay say: the sense of the event, pturg the soul of the people, the journey, the procs, the unknowns, ” he says. It was a behavr — accepted by some cultur and nsired sful by at the turn of the 20th century, the ia of homosexualy shifted om a practice to a liftyle and an inty.

As this new nceptn of homosexualy as a stigmatized and onero intifier took root Amerin culture, men began to be much more reful to not send msag to other men, and to women, that they were gay. At the same time, also may expla why untri wh a more nservative, relig culture, such as Ai or the Middle East, where men do engage homosexual acts, but still nsir homosexualy the “crime that nnot be spoken, ” remas mon for men to be affectnate wh one another and fortable wh thgs like holdg hands as they walk. The men’s very fortable and faiar pos and body language might make the men look like gay lovers to the morn eye — and they uld very well have been — but that was not the msage they were sendg at the time.

NEWLY PUBLISHED PORTRAS DOCUMENT A CENTURY OF GAY MEN LOVE

Bee homosexualy, even if thought of as a practice rather than an inty, was not somethg publicly exprsed, the men were not knowgly outg themselv the shots; their pos were mon, and simply reflected the timacy and tensy of male iendships at the time — none of the photos would have ed their ntemporari to bat an the thor of Picturg Men, John Ibson, nducted a survey of morn day portra studs to ask if they had ever had two men e to have their photo taken, he found that the event was so rare that many of the photographers he spoke to had never seen happen durg their reer. The snapshots ually were veloped by someone else who would have gotten a look at all of them, so aga, the pictur were not likely purposeful exprsns of gay love, but rather ptured the very mon level of fort men felt wh one another durg the early 20th of the reasons male iendships were so tense durg the 19th and early 20th centuri, is that socializatn was largely separated by sex; men spent most their time wh other men, women wh other women. In the 50s, some psychologists theorized that genr-segregated socializatn spurred homosexualy, and as cultural mor changed general, snapshots of only men together were supplanted by those of ed all male environments, such as mg mps or navy ships, was mon for men to hold danc, wh half the men wearg a patch or some other marker to signate them as the “women” for the eveng.