Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987)

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist.

Warhol's art encompassed many forms of media, including hand drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening, sculpture, film, and music. He was also a pioneer in computer-generated art using Amiga computers that were introduced in 1984, two years before his death. He founded Interview Magazine and was the author of numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. He is also notable as a gay man who lived openly as such before the gay liberation movement. His studio, The Factory, was a famous gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons.

Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame". Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$105 million for a 1963 canvas titled "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)". A 2009 article in The Economist described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market". Warhol's works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.



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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol

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More Artists at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Art

Elliott Hayes (June 22, 1956 - February 22, 1994)

Elliott Hayes (June 22, 1956 - February 22, 1994) was a rising Canadian playwright when he was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver.

Elliott Hayes was born in Stratford, Ontario to a theatrical family, the grandson of classical actor George Hayes and the son of John Sullivan Hayes, one of the original company members of the Stratford Festival.

He graduated from the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, and worked in Hollywood for several years before returning to Canada in 1981. He then served for many years as the literary manager, dramaturge and occasional lyricist and assistant director at the Stratford Festival. After his death in 1994, the Festival created the Elliott Hayes Award, a prize in Dramaturgy sponsored by the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.

His career was brief but produced several important works, including short stories, novels, poems and plays. His most produced work Homeward Bound was noted by author Margaret Atwood as “a brisk, intricate, and tightly-strung play with a lot of laughter”. It was first produced at the Stratford Festival and has since been performed across Canada and the United States.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Hayes

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More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Gay Classics

Dan Choi (born February 22, 1981)

Daniel Choi (born February 22, 1981) is a former American infantry officer in the United States Army who served in combat in the Iraq war during 2006-2007. He became an LGBT rights activist following his coming out on The Rachel Maddow Show in March 2009 and has publicly challenged America's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, which forbade lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) service members from serving openly.

Choi is a native of Orange County, California, the son of a Korean-American Baptist minister. He graduated from Tustin High School then attended the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Choi was very active with extracurriculars during his high school years. He served as student body president, was on the varsity swim team, and was the marching band drum major. During his senior year, after watching Saving Private Ryan, he decided to attend West Point.

Choi graduated from West Point in 2003 with degrees in Arabic and environmental engineering. Choi served as an infantry officer in Iraq with the 10th Mountain Division in 2006 and 2007. In June 2008, he transferred from active duty Army to the New York National Guard. Choi served as a National Guardsman with the 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry, based in Manhattan.

Choi received a discharge letter following his coming out on The Rachel Maddow Show. In response, Choi penned an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama and the United States Congress. In the letter, Choi challenged the morality and wisdom of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, writing that the policy is "a slap in the face to me. It is a slap in the face to my soldiers, peers and leaders who have demonstrated that an infantry unit can be professional enough to accept diversity, to accept capable leaders, to accept skilled soldiers."



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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Choi

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More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Persistent Voices

It Happened Today: February 22

Aiden Shaw (born February 22, 1966): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3473025.html

Aiden Shaw (born Aiden Finbar Brady, 22 February 1966, Harrow, Middlesex, United Kingdom) is a British author, musician, model and former gay porn star. Aiden is a book documenting Mark Beard’s experience of living with Aiden, a male prostitute he met while working in London as a set designer. It consists of Beard’s text, his intimate—sometimes explicit—photographs of Aiden, and Aiden’s own words, interwoven Rashomon-like to reveal the coinciding ties and disconnects between sex and desire.

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4217330.html

Andy Warhol was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives.

Clinton Kelly & Damon Bayles: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4217504.html

Clinton Kelly is an American fashion consultant and media personality best known for his role as co-host on What Not to Wear. He shares on-air duties with Stacy London. Kelly started his career as a freelance writer for several fashion magazines. Although he still continues to write, he has since expanded into fashion consulting and designing. Kelly joined the cast of ABC's daytime cooking show The Chew. Kelly is married to Damon Bayles. They were married in 2009 at their home in Connecticut.

Dan Choi (born February 22, 1981): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4218189.html

Dan Choi is a former American infantry officer in the United States Army who served in combat in the Iraq war during 2006-2007. He became an LGBT rights activist following his coming out on The Rachel Maddow Show in March 2009 and has publicly challenged America's DADT policy, which forbade lesbian, gay and bisexual service members from serving openly. In March 2013, Outright Libertarians announced that Dan Choi was joining the GLBTQ caucus of the Libertarian Party as an honorary board member.

Donna M. Smith & Valerie Jarrard: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4217718.html

Donna M. Smith came out In 1939 to a small group of lesbians and soon after she met her partner of 40 years, Valerie Jarrard. When Smith's mother learned of the relationship, she had her daughter committed to a mental institution. This experience was documented in Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community and in Dorothy Engleman's Pride and Prejudice. In the early 1980s, Smith became increasingly involved in lesbian and gay, animal welfare, and environmental organizations.

Elizabeth Bowen (June 7, 1899 – February 22, 1973): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3472787.html

Anglo-Irish novelist and writer Elizabeth Bowen sprinkled her fiction with people and relationships, usually coded, of either clear or ambiguous homosexuality. In 1923 she married Alan Cameron, an educational administrator who subsequently worked for the BBC. The marriage has been described as "a sexless but contented union". She had various extra-marital relationships, including one with the American poet May Sarton and with Charles Ritchie, a Canadian diplomat, which lasted over 30 years.

Elliott Hayes (June 22, 1956 - February 22, 1994): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/2804363.html

Elliott Hayes's career was brief but produced several important works, including short stories, novels, poems and plays. His most produced work Homeward Bound was noted by author Margaret Atwood as “a brisk, intricate, and tightly-strung play with a lot of laughter”. It was first produced at the Stratford Festival and has since been performed across Canada and the United States. He was a rising Canadian playwright when he was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver.

Felice Picano (born February 22, 1944): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3080255.html

Felice Picano (born February 22, 1944) is an American writer. In his memoir Men Who Loved Me, he describes his friendship with the poet W. H. Auden. In his later memoir/history, Art & Sex in Greenwich Village, he writes about contacts with Gore Vidal, James Purdy, Charles Henri Ford, Edward Gorey, Robert Mapplethorpe and many contemporary and younger authors. He won the Ferro-Grumley Award and Gay Times of England Award for best gay novel and the Syndicated Fiction/PEN Award for short-story.

Joseph Raffaele, Peter Hujar & Paul Thek: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3837219.html

Peter Hujar probably met Raffael at San Remo, a mixed queer/artist’s bar near Cooper Union. Before his involvement with Hujar, Raffael had been in a relationship with Jules Perlmutter. Beni Montresor, a director and theatrical designer, became involved with Joseph Raffael after the relationship with Hujar ended. After Thek return to New York in 1959, his artistic circle of friends included photographer Peter Hujar, as well as Joseph Raffaele, in addition to Susan Sontag.

Karla Jay (born February 22, 1947): http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3080489.html

Karla Jay (born February 22, 1947) is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published. At Pace University's 10th Annual Dyson Distinguished Achievement Awards, that took place April 6, 2006, Karla Jay was honored with the Distinguished Faculty Award. She received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle in 2006.

Lige Clarke & Jack Nichols: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/1430552.html

With his partner Lige Clarke, Nichols began writing the column "The Homosexual Citizen" for Screw magazine in 1968. "The Homosexual Citizen", which borrowed its title from the newspaper published by Mattachine D.C., was the first LGBT-interest column in a non-LGBT publication. On February 10, 1975, Clarke was shot and killed in Vera Cruz, Mexico. While his partner Nichols was convinced that the murder was the result of "machismo's homophobic influences", the murder remains officially unsolved.

Nina Flowers & Antonio Purcell de Ogenio: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/4217890.html

Jorge Luis Flores Sánchez (born February 22, 1974), better known as Nina Flowers, is a Puerto Rican drag queen, DJ, activist, professional make-up artist, and reality television personality who has been performing since 1993. Flowers and his partner, Antonio Purcell de Ogenio, presently reside in Denver, Colorado. On May 29, 2009, Denver's mayor, John Hickenlooper, issued a proclamation declaring May 29 as "Nina Flowers Day" in recognition of Flowers's contributions to the city's LGBT community.