A fine art, film, history and literature site oriented to, but not exclusively for, the gay community. Please be aware that there is mature content on this blog. Information on images and links to sources will be provided if known. Enjoy your visit and please subscribe.
Photographer Unknown, (Morning Coffee and a Cigarette), Photo Shoot
“Coffee is a lot more than just a drink; it’s something happening. Not as in hip, but like an event, a place to be, but not like a location, but like somewhere within yourself. It gives you time, but not actual hours or minutes, but a chance to be, like be yourself, and have a second cup”
―
Rudolf Tewes, “Self-Portrait”, 1906, Oil on Canvas
Rudolf Tewes, born on September 3 of 1879, was the son of a respected merchant and consul. He studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, one of the oldest and most prestigious academies in Munich..After 1904, Tewes toured extensively in Italy, Spain, France and South America. He resided in Paris from 1919 to 1927, moving once again to become a resident of Berlin and a member of the Berlin Secession, a part of German Modernism and an alternative to the existing art conventions.
Tewew intensely studied the paintings of Vincent van Gogh. His self-portrait, seen above, was exhibited for the first time under an exhibition held by the Berlin Secession and clearly showed Van Gogh’s influence upon Rudolf Tewes. The parallels in the brushwork, choice of color and picture object led to a joint presentation of twenty Tewes paintings with seven paintings by Van Gogh in 1910 in the Kunsthalle Bremen, an atrt museum exhibiting French and German art from the 1800s to the 1950s.
In 1913 the Kunsthalle Bremen acquired Tewes’s “Self-Portrait” as a gift from the gallery association. Tewes moved to Bremen in 1939, living there until his death in 1965. The Bremen Kunsthalle dedicated a special exhibition to Rudolf Tewes in 2000 entitled. Rudolf Tewes- A Painter under the Late Impresssionism”.
Barbara Morgan, “Martha Graham”, Performance “Letter to the World”, 1940
“Letter to the World” is an American modern dance piece created by Martha Graham in 1940 exploring the life and work of the poet Emily Dickinson, one of Graham’s favorite poets. It is an introspective work that, in Graham’s words, investigates Dickinson’s inner landscape. The main narrative rotates around the struggle of the One Who Dances and the Ancestress, who embodies the poet’s Puritan tradition and death, creating a combination of dances and spoken lines.
Reblogged with many thanks to a great site: doctordee. tumblr..com
Photographer Unknown, Alan Turing at Bosham, 1939
This image shows mathematician and computer pioneer Alan Turing at Bosham, a coastal village and civil parish in Chichester, England.. He is seated with several figures including two Jewish refugee boys he rescued from Nazi Germany.
Alan Turing’s central contribution to science and philosophy came through his treating the subject of symbolic logic as a new branch of applied mathematics, giving it a physical and engineering content. Though a shy man, he had a pivotal role in world history through his role in Second World War cryptology. From 1939 to 1945 Turing was almost totally engaged in the mastery of the German enciphering machine, Enigma, and other cryptological investigations at now-famous Bletchley Park, 
the British government’s wartime communications headquarters. Turing made a unique logical contribution to the decryption of the Enigma and became the chief scientific figure, with a particular responsibility for reading the U-boat communications.
In 1948 Alan Turing moved to Manchester University, where he partly fulfilled the expectations placed upon him to plan software for the pioneer computer development there, but still remained a free-ranging thinker. It was here that his famous 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” was written. In 1951 Turing was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his 1936 achievement, yet at the same time he was striking into entirely new territory with a mathematical theory of biological morphogenesis.
This work was interrupted by Alan Turing’s arrest in February 1952 for his sexual affair with a young Manchester man, and he was obliged, to escape imprisonment, to undergo the injection of oestrogen intended to negate his sexual drive. He was disqualified from continuing secret cryptological work. Turing’s general libertarian attitude was enhanced rather than suppressed by the criminal trial, and his intellectual individuality also 
remained as lively as ever. While remaining formally a Reader in the Theory of Computing, he not only embarked on more ambitious applications of his biological theory, but advanced new ideas for fundamental physics.
For this reason Alan Turing’s death, on 7 June 1954, at his home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, came as a general surprise. In hindsight it is obvious that Turing’s unique status in Anglo-American secret communication work meant that there were pressures on him of which his contemporaries were unaware. Turing had previously spoken of suicide; and his death by cyanide poisoning was most likely by his own hand. The symbolism of his death’s dramatic element—a partly eaten apple—has continued to haunt the intellectual Eden from which Alan Turing was expelled.
In 1967, the British government took its first steps toward decriminalizing homosexuality. It was not until 2009 that the government officially apologized for its treatment of Alan Turing and thousand of other gay men who were convicted under the existing Victorian laws. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted Alan Turing a royal pardon, 59 years after a housekeeper found his body at his home at Wilmslow, near Manchester, in northwest England.
Photograher Unknown, Man Carrying Matooke on a Bicycle, Uganda
“We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other’s opposite and complement”
— Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund
Photographer Unknown, (A Moment Settled and Hovered)
“As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.”
―
Photographer Unknown, (Breathed on by Light)
“It was the hour in which objects lose the consistency of shadow that accompanies them during the night and gradually reacquire colors, but seem to cross meanwhile an uncertain limbo, faintly touched, just breathed on by light; the hour in which one is least certain of the world’s existence.”
―
The Artwork of Chip Whitehouse
Chip Whitehouse is a gay artist exploring in his artwork the theme of sexuality with its associated emotions. He studied Fine Art in the field of Oil Painting at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and studied Fashion Design at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco, California.
Photographer Unknown, (The Tunnel)
“But that’s life. One long tunnel. There are lights along the way. Sometimes they feel spread farther apart than others, but they’re there. And when you find one, it’s okay to stand under it for a while to catch your breath before marching back into the dark.”
―
Julián Merlo, Photo Shoot of Hassan, October 2018, Berlin, Germany
Julián Merlo is a photographer from Buenos Aires, Argentina, who does portraiture photography world wide. These images are from a photo shoot of Lebanese actor, dancer, and drag performer Hassan Dib who is currently based in Berlin.
James Tissot, “The Circle of the Rue Royale”, 1868, Detail, Oil on Canvas, 174.5 x 280 cm, Musée d’Orsay, RMN-Grand Palais, France
Born in Nantes in October of 1836, Jacques Joseph Tissot received his education at a Jesuit school, later enrolling at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the age of twenty. Here he studied under Hippolyte Flandrin and Louis Lamothe, both successful painters from the city of Lyons. While studying in Paris, Tissot met the young American pinter James Whistler and was befriended by the Impressionist painter Edgar Degas. it was also at this time that he anglicised his Christian name to James.
James Tissot exhibited at the Paris Salon for the first time in 1859, showing five paintings depicting medieval scenes and scenes from Goethe’s play “Faust”. The following year, the French government purchased Tissot’s exhibited painting “The Meeting of Faust and Marguerite”. In the early 1860s Tissot traveled to Italy and then to 
London, where his painting “Walk in the Snow” was shown at the 1862 London International Exhibition.
Around 1863, James Tissot changed the focus of his work from medieval scenes to portraiture depicting modern life. He oriented his style to the taste of the British Victorian era, in subject matter and style, often employing the mystery of the Orient by including Japanese objects and costumes. The son of a fashion seller and a milliner, Tissot gave particular attention to the clothing and costumes in his paintings. In 1864, he exhibited his oil paintings of contemporary scenes at the Royal Academy in London for the first time.
James Tissot’s painting “The Circle of the Rue Royale”, a detail of which is shown as the central image of this posting, gave him an opportunity to show his interest in costume and his degree of accuracy to detail. The painting shows the taste of the British aristocracy of the 1860s, depicting the social status of the figures in the prestigious surroundings of the Hotel de Coislin, established in 1758.
The Circle of the Rue Royale was a male club founded in 1852 which commissioned James Tissot to paint this portrait of its members in the style of a British conversation piece rather than Tissot’s French tradition. Each one of the twelve members paid 1000 Francs for the painting to be made, and the final owner was to be determined by a special draw. Baron Hottinger, the central figure in the detail image, was eventually named the winner. This painting contributed the Tissot’s emergence as one of the most talented portraitists of his generation.
Photographer Unknown, (The Ginger Man)
“Come here till I tell you. Where is the sea high and the winds soft and moist and warm, sometimes stained with sun, with peace so wild for wishing where all is told and telling.”
―
Images reblogged with thanks to http://bordjack.tumblr.com
Carl Van Vechten, ” Bessie Smith Holding Feathers”, 3 February 1936, Restored by Adam Cuerden, Library of Congress
Accomplished photographer, Carl Van Vechten was an author, critic, and a supporter of Harlem Renaissance artists. After moving to New York City, he was hired by The New 
York Times as an assistant to the music critic. In 1908 Van Vechten became the Paris correspondent for The New York Times, returning in 1909 to become the first American critic of modern dance. In the period from 1913 to 1914, he worked as the drama critic for the Times.
In the early 1930s, Carl Van Vechten began photographing his large circle of friends with a 35 mm Leica camera, given to him by the Mexican painter Miguel Covarrubias. His earlier career as a writer with the New York Times and his theater connection through his actress wife provided him with access to new and established artists and cultural figures of the time. His portraits were usually busts or half-length poses in front of backdrops, using an assistant for lighting setups but developing his own photographs.
His portfolio of photographic works was a ‘who’s who” of America’s cultural icons of the early to middle 1900s. 
His portfolio includes images of Eugene O”Neill, Gertrude Stein, actress Anna May Wong, Langston Hughes, Pearl Bailey, and many others. His works were exhibited at Bergdorf Goodman in 1933, at the annual Leica Eshibitions between 1934 and 1936, and at Museum of the City of New York in 1942 and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1951.
Carl Van Vechten felt srongly that his work documenting the period of the 1900s should be availabe for scholarly research. With that in mind, he donated, during his lifetime, his collection of manuscripts, clippings, letters, and photographs to several university libraries. He remained an active photographer and writer until his death in 1964. The Library of Congress acquired Van Vechten’s assistant of twenty years Saul Mauriber’s collection of 1,400 photographs in 1966. The Museum of the City of New York also holds an extensive collection of over 2,000 images.
Top Insert Image: Carl Van Vechten, “Self Portrait”, May 8 1934, Gelatin Silver Print, Van Vechten Collection, Library of Congress, Washington DC
Bottom Insert Image: Carl Van Vechten, “Actress Amy May Wong”, 1932, Gelatin Silver Print, Van Vechton Collection, Library of Congress, Washington DC
Bruno Barbey, “Capoeira Percussioner”, 2007, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
Mikael Joansson, “Ezra Miller”, from Interview Magazine November 2017
Mikael Jansson is a leading fashion photographer/director currently living in London and working worldwide. During the mid-nineties he gained notoriety creating epic features for some of the leading avant-garde publications of the era. He is renowned for his technical prowess and emotionally charged images, spanning across all genres.
Among his influences he credits legendary master photographer Richard Avedon who he worked with in the late eighties. Mikael Jansson’s spirit of adventure and travel has taken him to spectacular locations around the world on assignment for publications such as W Magazine, Vogue, Vogue Paris and Vogue Nippon. He regularly contributes to Interview Magazine, shooting celebrity cover features as well as influential actors, musicians and designers.