The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity 1869-1939

by Jonathan D. Katz (Author)

An unprecedented and historic new book, The First Homosexuals traces the evolution of the homosexual identity through an archive of more than 300 paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, photographs, and film stills from around the world – many presented in a queer, global, and colonial context for the first time. Accompanying the works are twenty-two original, insightful essays by leading experts in art and queer history, each focusing on one geographical region – from Japan to Australia to the Indigenous populations of South America. Ranging from well-known masterpieces to works by unknown artists and pieces rarely considered in the context of sexuality, The First Homosexuals offers a stunning and illuminating look at the first self-consciously queer art. The book accompanies a groundbreaking exhibition of the same name presented at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago.

Featured artists include Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, Félix Vallotton, Harriet Hosmer, Katsushika Hokusai, Kitagawa Utamaro, Frederic Leighton, Simeon Solomon, Giovanni Boldini, Jacques-Émile Blanche, Berenice Abbott, Clare Atwood, Duncan Grant, Laura Rodig, Carl van Vechten, Beauford Delaney, Anna Klumpke, Sarah Bernhardt, Walter Sickert, Florence Carlyle, Florence Wyle , Frances Loring, Ottilie Roederstein, Florine Stettheimer Nasta Rojc, Glyn Philpot, Romaine Brooks, Ismael Nery, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Roberto etc.

Hardcover, 368 Pages