Author Description

Writing queer culture into art history means redrawing the boundaries of what counts as art, as well as what counts as history. It means searching for cracks in the partition that separates 'high' art from 'low' culture and in the divide between public achievement and private life. Not a book exclusively about artists who identify themselves as gay or lesbian, this volume instead traces the shifting possibilities and constraints of sexual identity that have provided visual artists with a rich creative resource over the last 125 years. The book includes not only pictures made and displayed under the rubric of fine art but also those intended for private, underground or otherwise restricted audiences, including scrapbooks, amateur artworks, cartoons, bar murals, anonymous photographs, and activist posters, as well as paintings, sculptures, art photographs and video installations. The Survey essay examines the interplay between art and dissident sexualities, while the Works section presents images of over 220 key artworks accompanied by informative captions, and the Documents section provides a generous archive of primary and secondary texts.--From publisher description.