Charles Leslie is an American art collector, gay rights activist and founder of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art. [1]
Born in Deadwood, South Dakota, Leslie was stationed in Heidelberg, Germany, during the Korean War. In Heidelberg, he first met with the works of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. After he was released from duty, Leslie toured Europe with the Lotte Goslar Pantomime Circus for a few years. Afterwards he enrolled in the Sorbonne. When Leslie returned to the United States, he joined the touring production of Tennessee Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer play. [2]
Charles Leslie met Fritz Lohman (1922–2010 [2] ) in 1962. Leslie was a performance artist at that time. They were introduced to each other at a brunch with friends. [3] [4] Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman, held their first homoerotic art show in their SoHo loft in May 1969. [5] Since then their loft is called "Phallus Palace". [6]
Founded in 1952, One Institute, is the oldest active LGBTQ+ organization in the United States, dedicated to telling LGBTQ+ history and stories through education, arts, and social justice programs. Since its inception, the organization has been headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
Richard Theodore Titlebaum was a writer, artist, antiquarian book collector and literature professor.
The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (LLMA), formerly the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, is a visual art museum in SoHo, Lower Manhattan, New York City. It mainly collects, preserves and exhibits visual arts created by LGBTQ artists or art about LGBTQ+ themes, issues, and people. The museum, operated by the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation, offers exhibitions year-round in numerous locations and owns more than 22,000 objects, including, paintings, drawings, photography, prints and sculpture. The foundation was awarded Museum status by the New York State Board of Regents in 2011 and was formally accredited as a museum in 2016. The museum is a member of the American Alliance of Museums and operates pursuant to their guidelines. As of 2019, the LLMA was the only museum in the world dedicated to artwork documenting the LGBTQ experience.
Joan E. Biren or JEB is an American feminist photographer and film-maker, who dramatizes the lives of LGBT people in contexts that range from healthcare and hurricane relief to womyn’s music and anti-racism. For portraits, she encourages sitters to act as her “muse”, rather than her “subject”. Biren was a member of The Furies Collective, a short-lived but influential lesbian commune.
George Stavrinos was a Greek American illustrator. Born in Somerville, Massachusetts, he graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1969. After a year of study abroad he moved to Philadelphia and worked as a mural artist for local businesses. Stavrinos eventually moved to New York and began working for Push Pin Studios and The New York Times in the mid-1970s before he began his run of influential department store campaigns began in 1977.
The National LGBTQ Task Force is an American social justice advocacy non-profit organizing the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Also known as The Task Force, the organization supports action and activism on behalf of LGBTQ people and advances a progressive vision of liberation. The past executive director was Rea Carey from 2008-2021 and the current executive director is Kierra Johnson, who took over the position in 2021 to become the first Black woman to head the organization.
New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest and most prominent LGBTQ+ populations. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBTQ advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."
Gonzalo Orquín is a Spanish artist best known for his paintings of intimate scenes of melancholy and everyday eroticism, and his controversial 2013 photo series, titled "Sí, quiero", featuring gay and lesbian couples kissing in Roman Catholic churches in Rome.
Ajamu X is a British artist, curator, archivist and activist. He is best known for his fine art photography which explores same-sex desire, and the Black male body, and his work as an archivist and activist to document the lives and experiences of black LGBTQ people in the United Kingdom (UK).
Larry Stanton was a Manhattan-based portrait artist whose work was championed by David Hockney, Henry Geldzahler, Ellsworth Kelly and others. He was a gay man who lived in Greenwich Village in New York City.
Bill Schmeling, better known by his pen name The Hun, was an American artist active in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, known for his explicit, homoerotic fetish illustrations and comics.
The Silence=Death Project, best known for its iconic political poster, was the work of a six-person collective in New York City: Avram Finkelstein, Brian Howard, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, Chris Lione, and Jorge Soccarás.
Stephen Lloyd Varble was a notorious American performance artist, playwright, and fashion designer in lower Manhattan during the 1970s. His work challenged both mainstream conceptions of gender and exposed the materialism of the established, institutionalized art world.
Donna Gottschalk is an American photographer who was active in the 1970s and came out as lesbian around the time that Radicalesbians and the Furies Collective formed.
Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 was a series of LGBTQ events and celebrations in June 2019, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots. It was also the first time WorldPride was held in the United States. Held primarily in the metropolitan New York City area, the theme for the celebrations and educational events was "Millions of moments of Pride." The celebration was the largest LGBTQ event in history, with an official estimate of 5 million attending Pride weekend in Manhattan alone, with an estimated 4 million in attendance at the NYC Pride March. The twelve-hour parade included 150,000 pre-registered participants among 695 groups.
The National LGBTQ Wall of Honor is a memorial wall in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, dedicated to LGBTQ "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes". Located inside the Stonewall Inn, the wall is part of the Stonewall National Monument, the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the country's LGBTQ rights and history. The first fifty inductees were unveiled June 27, 2019, as a part of events marking the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Five honorees are added annually.
Gonzalo E. Casals is an Argentine-American museum director and professor based in New York City. He is the former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and previously held the executive director position at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York. He was the Vice President of Programs and Community Engagement at Friends of the High Line, as well as the Deputy and Interim Director of El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem. He is a resident of Jackson Heights, Queens.
Shari Diamond is a queer American feminist artist and educator. Diamond uses they/them gender pronouns. Diamond was born in Miami Beach, Florida and earned an M.A. in Photography from New York University / International Center of Photography. They currently live in Newburgh, New York.
Memorial To A Marriage (2002) is the first marriage equality monument worldwide.
Olaf Odegaard, better known by his pen name Olaf, was an American artist and playwright active in the latter half of the twentieth century, known for his homoerotic illustrations.