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The Gay & Lesbian Review

A bimonthly magazine of history, culture, and politics.
Archive for "March-April 2024"

Browsing: March-April 2024

March-April 2024

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Wonner and Brown frequented the Yuba River, indulging in naked swims. Wonner’s paintings of nude bathers went unquestioned because they aligned with the established tradition of men bathing together. Drawing inspiration from Paul Cézanne, Wonner portrays the bathers as a dynamic mass of interwoven, predominantly male figures. Wonner sent a touching Christmas card to Brown in which he referred to himself as “Paul Cézanne,” an acknowledgment of the influence of the French artist on their work. In contrast to Wonner’s approach, Brown’s bathers, such as Standing Bathers (1993), which is the official image of the exhibition, …

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At fewer than ninety pages, Rowe’s Liberated merely scratches the surface of Cahun’s life and art. But perhaps that’s appropriate as Cahun’s art often dealt with surfaces: poses, masks, assumed or discarded identities. The book pays tribute to Cahun’s Surrealistic photography and æsthetics, her aggressive anti-fascism, and her enduring, indestructible love for Marcel Moore.

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A new biography, Ideal Beauty: The Life and Times of Greta GarboI, by feminist historian Lois Banner—who’s the cofounder of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians—presents Greta Louisa Gustafson (1905–1990) as Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. So much has been written about the actress that the Hollywood dream factory exploited as a marketable commodity during the 1920s and ’30s, when Garbo was billed as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” that it’s a challenge to say something new. Banner’s book offers a feminist rehash of Garbo’s childhood and reprises the well-known struggles on her quest for cinematic fame and financial freedom.

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Saint was a founding member of the Blackheart Collective, and published numerous collections of his own poetry, editing two anthologies, notably The Road Before Us: 100 Black Gay Poets (1991). Sacred Spells is a collection of exemplary poems, essays, stories, plays, and even some performance pieces.

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IN THE SUMMER OF 1997, I gave birth to two beautiful drag babies on Pier 54 in Manhattan. We were at Wigstock, the raucous drag festival. Like many mothers, I neglected their development, but they have since grown into upstanding, fierce queens. Hundreds of drag mamas, whom Elyssa Maxx Goodman lovingly documents in Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City, were far more committed to their drag careers and to nurturing newcomers to the culture of drag than was I.

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The moral became that “homoerotic attachments are acceptable, provided they manifest within the boundaries of socially appropriate behaviour,” states Andrew Sutherland in Queer Opera, his survey of homoerotic elements in the history of opera.

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Homeland of My Body is a substantial compilation of poems from four earlier collections, along with many new poems. Blanco includes references to his private life in many of his works, but he does not write primarily about gay life. Instead, it is his Cuban ancestry and family members that shine through like a Havana sunrise. Ancestry, family history, and Cuban customs are so much at the heart of his œuvre that the theme of gay love is moved to the periphery.

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THE LYRICS from a song in Stephen Sondheim’s dazzling Broadway show Sunday in the Park with George (1983) include these lines: “Bit by bit,/ Putting it together./ Piece by Piece—/ Only way to make a work of art./ Every moment makes a contribution,/ Every little detail plays a part./ Having just the vision’s no solution,/ Everything depends on execution:/ Putting it together/ That’s what counts.” Stephen M. Silverman’s lush, posthumous coffee table compendium of Sondheim’s career, Sondheim: His Life, His Shows, His Legacy, does exactly that. It puts it all together to make an exhilarating work of art in its own right.

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