Carl Morse (1926 - September 4, 2008)

[reviews_and_ramblings]

In 2010, BigKugels Photographic acquired the complete collection of respected New York male nude photography collector Carl Morse (1935-2008)

Morse was one of the best known and most astute private photography dealers in New York City during the 1990s and 2000s, and became one of our mentors, not just for his knowledge of the material, but more importantly his love of its artistic and historic merit, and respect for its value.

He was responsible for a 1990s exhibit at the New York Public Library examining the history of male nude photography, and a consultant to the photography department of the New York Metropolitan Museum.

A respected poet and playwright, Morse was an important influence on British gay and lesbian writers and performing artists of the 1980s and '90s, through his inclusion in gay literary anthologies, performances of his work in London, and as co-editor of Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time.

As Steve Cranfield wrote in an obituary for The Guardian (September 4, 2008) "His plays, like his poetry, were fuelled by rage, leavened by humor and punctuated with a surprise tenderness."

Born in working-class Maine, Morse studied English and foreign languages at Yale, and spent his Fulbright scholarship (1956-58) in Europe.

He was a frequent correspondent with and editor for EM Forster, and an accomplished translator whose work included a biography of Verlaine, the essays of André Maurois, and even the 1961 French version of Snow White.

He lived his final decades in London Terrace, in Chelsea, New York.

American photographer Robert Giard is renowned for his portraits of American poets and writers; his particular focus was on gay and lesbian writers. Some of his photographs of the American gay and lesbian literary community appear in his groundbreaking book Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers, published by MIT Press in 1997. Giard’s stated mission was to define the literary history and cultural identity of gays and lesbians for the mainstream of American society, which perceived them as disparate, marginal individuals possessing neither. In all, he photographed more than 600 writers. (http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/giard.html)

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/sep/04/poetry

Further Readings:

Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time: An Anthology by Carl Morse and Joan Larkin
Hardcover: 401 pages
Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1 edition (September 1988)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312022131
ISBN-13: 978-0312022136
Amazon: Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time: An Anthology

Gay & Lesbian Studies, Homosexuality, Poetry, Anthology, literary Studies

More Particular Voices at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Particular Voices