Maurice Denton Welch (March 29, 1915 - December 30, 1948) was born in Shanghai, to Arthur Joseph Welch, whose parents were English, and Rosalind Basset, whose family was originally from New Bedford, Massachusetts. Denton Welch was the youngest of four boys and spent his early childhood in Shanghai, with many visits to England. (Picture: Denton Welch, Self-portrait)

In 1924, Welch was enrolled in a school in Kensington, and then in 1926-1929 he attended St. Michael's, a preparatory school in Uckfield, Sussex. While he was in school, his mother, with whom he was especially close, died in Shanghai during March of 1927; this event had a profound effect on her son. In 1929 Welch started attending school at Repton in Derbyshire. Welch started at the Goldsmith School of Art in New Cross in 1933, where he studied for three years; among his teachers was the printmaker and graphic designer Edward Bawden. At first he lived in a house where his brother Bill was also rooming, and then he moved into a house near Greenwich Park where the landlady was Evelyn Sinclair, who became a close lifelong friend.

On June 7, 1935, Welch was traveling by bicycle to go visit his aunt, when he was hit by a car. His spine was fractured, and for a few months he was paralyzed from the chest down. He was able to learn to walk again, but with difficulty. For the rest of his life he had kidney and bladder infections, which would cause frequent severe headaches. After the accident, Welch first spent time at National Hospital, and then in the Southcourt Nursing Home in Broadstairs, Kent. When he left the nursing home July 1936, Welch rented an apartment with Evelyn Sinclair in Tonbridge in order that he could be close to his doctor, John Easton. He met his companion, Eric Oliver, in November 1943 while he was convalescing. Sinclair remained with Welch as his housekeeper at his different residences until May 1946, two months after Welch and his partner Eric Oliver moved to Middle Orchard, the country house of Noël and Bernard Adeney at Crouch, near Borough Green, Kent. However, Sinclair returned to Middle Orchard in July 1948 to assist Welch until his death. (Picture: Denton Welch, Cat Waiting For Its Master, ca. 1935–1948, Watercolor, pen, and ink on board, 13 5/8 x 9 1/16" (34.6 x 23 cm))


Denton Welch, portrait by Gerald McKenzie Leet, 1935
When Denton Welch left the nursing home in July 1936, after recovering from an accident knjury, he rented an apartment with Evelyn Sinclair in Tonbridge. He met his companion, Eric Oliver, in November 1943 while he was convalescing. Sinclair remained with Welch as his housekeeper at his different residences until May 1946, two months after Welch and his partner Eric Oliver moved to Borough Green, Kent. However, Sinclair returned to Middle Orchard in July 1948 to assist Welch until his death.

( Read more... )

Source: http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00242.xml

For nearly half a century Eric Oliver (born Bromley, Kent 6 October 1914; died Portslade, East Sussex 1 April 1995) basked in the reflected glory of having lived with the writer Denton Welch for the last four years of his life. (P: Eric Oliver in 1947)

Oliver was introduced to Welch in November 1943 at a time when Oliver, a conscientious objector, was working on the land and Welch was living as a semi-invalid, following a disastrous road accident when he was 20, near Hadlow, in Kent. "After you left the other night," Welch wrote to the painter Nol Adeney, "who should appear but Francis [Streeten, one of Welch's more eccentric acquaintances] and a new hearty land-boy friend! The land-boy kept suggesting that I should get up and go out and have a drink with him! As I was almost a corpse by then, I could not oblige." He elaborated in his Journals: "I tried to be very bright; but it was an awful strain. They had been drinking in a pub and had come on to me later. They were still mildly redolent of the pub and beer."

Despite Oliver's boozy and often hurtful conduct, Denton Welch fell in love with him. The intensity of Welch's emotions was not returned, for on his own admission Oliver was incapable of love ("You must never take me seriously," he wrote in the only letter of his to Welch which survives), but, once they had sorted out the imbalance in their relationship, Oliver moved in with him, and as Welch's physical condition deteriorated Oliver nursed him with practical expertise.

On the face of it, Eric Oliver seemed an incongruous choice of companion for a writer and painter as fastidious as Denton Welch. "It is just because you are different that I like you," Welch wrote to him in February 1944. "You wouldn't touch my imagination in the very least if you approximated more to my type." Oliver was virtually illiterate, and had little judgement about people, art or business. As Welch's residuary beneficiary on his death at the tragically early age of 33 (inheriting about £5,000), he appointed himself his literary executor, but parted with the copyrights of Welch's works to a bookseller who promptly resold them to the University of Texas. Oliver always maintained that he did not understand what he was signing.

( Read more... )

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-eric-oliver-1614132.html (Michele De-la-noy, Tuesday 04 April 1995, The Independent)

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Alain Daniélou (4 October 1907 – 27 January 1994) was a French historian, intellectual, musicologist, Indologist, and a noted Western convert to and expert on Shaivite Hinduism. He and his partner, Swiss photographer Raymond Burnier, whom he met in the early '30s, first went to India as part of an adventure trip, and they were fascinated with the art and culture of the nation. Daniélou and Burnier were among the first Westerners to visit India's famed erotic temples in the village of Khajuraho and Burnier's stunning photographs of the ancient temple complex launched the site internationally. The photographs were featured in an exhibition at the New York's Metropolitan Museum. (P: @Jacques Cloarec, Alain Daniélou)

Daniélou's mother, Madeleine Clamorgan, was from an old family of the Norman nobility; a fervent Catholic, she founded a religious order for women teachers in civilian costume under the patronage of St. François-Xavier. His father, Charles Daniélou, was an anticlerical Breton politician who held numerous national ministerial posts. One of his brothers was Roman Catholic prelate and Académie française member, Jean Daniélou. (P: Raymond Burnier at Zagarolo)

The young Daniélou studied singing under the famous Charles Panzéra, as well as classical dancing with Nicholas Legat (teacher of Vaslav Nijinsky), and composition with Max d'Ollone.


Alain Daniélou was a French historian a noted Western convert to and expert on Shaivite Hinduism. He and his partner, Swiss photographer Raymond Burnier, whom he met in the early '30s, first went to India in 1932, and they were fascinated with the art and culture of the nation. Daniélou and Burnier were among the first Westerners to visit India's famed erotic temples in the village of Khajuraho and Burnier's stunning photographs of the ancient temple complex launched the site internationally.


In Europe once more after nearly 20 years in India, Alain Daniélou found a large 11-hectare property for his friend, Raymond Burnier, at Colle Labirinto, Zagarolo, where Burnier came to live in 1958 after his divorce. Mrs. Burnier went on to become the international chairman of the Theosophical Society. In 1960 Alain Daniélou purchased two cottages on a much smaller piece of land, right beside the Burnier property. He only lived there permanently starting from 1980, when he retired.


Head of an apsaras. Mukteshvar Temple, Bhuvaneshvar. x century. Photograph Raymond Burnier-Copyright Pierre Beres

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Dani%C3%A9lou & http://www.find.org.in/alain-danielou/news/news/ (Jacques Cloarec – Translation by Kenneth F. Hurry)

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

David Garnett (9 March 1892 – 17 February 1981) was a British writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life. Garnett was bisexual, as were several members of the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group, and he had affairs with Francis Birrell and Duncan Grant. (P: ©Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938)/NPG Ax140447. David Garnett, 1920 (©4))

A writer, he first met members of the Bloomsbury group in 1910 but was not fully accepted by them until 1914 when he became Duncan Grant's lover. Like Grant, Garnett was a conscientious objector and having worked in France in 1915 with the Friends War Victims Relief Mission, he worked as a farm labourer to avoid conscription on his return to England. Garnett moved with Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell to Charleston farmhouse in 1916. He married Angelica Garnett in 1942. He was present at the birth of Grant's daughter, Angelica (by Vanessa Bell, and accepted by her husband Clive Bell), on 25 December 1918, and wrote to a friend shortly afterwards, "I think of marrying it. When she is 20, I shall be 46 – will it be scandalous?". When Angelica was in her early twenties, they did marry (on 8 May 1942), to the horror of her parents. 

Garnett was born in Brighton, the only child of the writer, critic and publisher Edward Garnett and his wife Constance, a translator of Russian. As a conscientious objector in the First World War, David worked on fruit farms in Suffolk and Sussex with his lover, Duncan Grant.


Duncan Grant and David Garnett, 1914, by Duncan Grant
David Garnett was bisexual, as were several members of the Bloomsbury Group, and he had affairs with Francis Birrell and Duncan Grant. A writer, he first met members of the Bloomsbury group in 1910 but was not fully accepted by them until 1914 when he became Duncan Grant's lover. Like Grant, Garnett was a conscientious objector and having worked in France in 1915 with the Friends War Victims Relief Mission, he worked as a farm labourer to avoid conscription on his return to England.

( Read more... )

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Garnett

Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978) was a British painter and designer of textiles, pottery and theatre sets and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. (P: ©Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938)/NPG Ax141304. Duncan Grant, 1922 (©4))

His father was Bartle Grant, a "poverty-stricken" major in the army, and much of his early childhood was spent in India and Burma. He was a grandson of Sir John Peter Grant, 12th Laird of Rothiemurchus, KCB, GCMG, sometime Lt-Governor of Bengal. Duncan was also the first cousin twice removed of John Grant, 13th Earl of Dysart (b. 1946).

Grant was born on 21 January 1885 in Rothiemurchus at Aviemore in northern Scotland. He attended school in England from 1894, where he was educated at Hillbrow School, a preparatory school in Rugby, and St Paul's School, London. Grant showed little enthusiasm for studying but enjoyed art classes. He was encouraged by his art teacher and also his aunt Lady Strachey, who organised private drawing lessons for him. Eventually, he was allowed to follow his desire to become an artist, rather than join the army as his father wished, and he attended Westminster School of Art in 1902. He then studied art at the Slade School and in Italy and Paris.

He was a cousin, and for some time a lover, of Lytton Strachey. Through the Stracheys, Duncan was introduced to the Bloomsbury Group, where John Maynard Keynes became another of his lovers.


Lady Ottoline Morrell; Maria Huxley (née Nys); Lytton Strachey; Duncan Grant; Vanessa Bell (née Stephen), vintage snapshot print, July 1915, 2 1/2 in. x 4 1/8 in. (62 mm x 104 mm) image size, Purchased with help from the Friends of the National Libraries and the Dame Helen Gardner Bequest, 2003, Photographs Collection, NPG Ax140432

( Read more... )

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

John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton CB, was the preeminent economist of the twentieth century. As an associate of the Bloomsbury Group, he enjoyed love affairs with painter Duncan Grant and psychologist Sebastian Sprott, and wrote love letters to writer Lytton Strachey. In fact, he was with Grant for nearly eight years and supported him financially even after they broke up. Keynes eventually gave up men and married ballerina Lydia Lopokova. (©International Monetary Fund. Assistant Secretary, U.S. Treasury, Harry Dexter White (left) and John Maynard Keynes, honorary advisor to the U.K. Treasury at the inaugural meeting of the International Monetary Fund's Board of Governors in Savannah, Georgia, U.S., 1946 (©8))

Attitudes in the Bloomsbury Group, in which Keynes was avidly involved, were relaxed about homosexuality. Keynes, together with writer Lytton Strachey, had reshaped the Victorian attitudes of the Cambridge Apostles: "since [their] time, homosexual relations among the members were for a time common", wrote Bertrand Russell. The artist Duncan Grant, whom he met in 1908, was one of Keynes's great loves. Keynes was also involved with Lytton Strachey, though they were for the most part love rivals, and not lovers. Keynes had won the affections of Arthur Hobhouse, as well as Grant, both times falling out with a jealous Strachey for it. Strachey had previously found himself put off by Keynes, not least because of his manner of "treat[ing] his love affairs statistically".

Keynes' friends in the Bloomsbury Group were initially surprised when, in his later years, he began dating and pursuing affairs with women, demonstrating himself to be bisexual. Ray Costelloe (who would later marry Oliver Strachey) was an early heterosexual interest of Keynes. In 1906, Keynes had written of this infatuation that, "I seem to have fallen in love with Ray a little bit, but as she isn't male I haven't [been] able to think of any suitable steps to take."


J.M. Keynes and Duncan Grant taken sometime prior to 1913 (©19)
Duncan Grant was a British painter and designer. He was a cousin, and for some time a lover, of Lytton Strachey. Through the Stracheys, Duncan was introduced to the Bloomsbury Group, where John Maynard Keynes became another of his lovers. He was in a relationship with Vanessa Bell. Duncan had many serious relationships with men, most notably David Garnett. In Grant's later years, the poet Paul Roche, whom he had known since 1946, took care of him and enabled Grant to maintain his way of life.

( Read more... )

Stern, Keith (2009-09-01). Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals (Kindle Locations 6971-6974). BenBella Books, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Donald Robert Paul Roche (26 September 1916 – 30 October 2007) was a British poet, novelist, and professor of English, a critically acclaimed translator of Greek and Latin classics, notably the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Sappho, and Plautus. Born in Mussoorie, India, Roche was an associate of the Bloomsbury group, especially of painter Duncan Grant, whom he met in the summer of 1946 and who lived with Roche and his family until Grant's death in 1978. (P: Paul Roche in the Studio at Charleston, by kind permission of Pandora Smith)

Duncan Grant was a British painter and designer. He was a cousin, and for some time a lover, of Lytton Strachey. Through the Stracheys, Duncan was introduced to the Bloomsbury Group, where John Maynard Keynes became another of his lovers. He was in a relationship with Vanessa Bell. Duncan had many serious relationships with men, most notably David Garnett. In Grant's later years, Paul Roche took care of him and enabled Grant to maintain his way of life. In 1958 Duncan Grant decorated the Russell Chantry at Lincoln Cathedral, using Roche as the model for Christ. In 1973 they travelled together to Turkey, resulting in the journal With Duncan Grant in Southern Turkey (1982). In 1975 they took a house and spent six months in Tangier, where Paul nursed Grant through pneumonia. Roche was made co-heir of Grant's estate. He was devastated when, in 1978, at the Roche household where he had come to live, Duncan Grant died of bronchial pneumonia at the age of 93.

Paul Roche used his translation of Sophocles', Oedipus the King, to write a screenplay for a film version of the work released in 1968 with Christopher Plummer in the title role. Roche played a small role in the Greek chorus.

Roche was ordained as a priest in 1943 but left priesthood in the 1950s. Marrried twice, he was a father of three children with his first and one with his second wife.




Paul Roche in the Garden, by Duncan Grant, painted circa 1960s

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Roche

Walter John Herbert Sprott, known to friends as ‘Sebastian’ Sprott, and also known as Jack Sprott (1897–1971), was a British psychologist and writer.

Sprott was educated at Felsted School and Clare College, Cambridge, where he became a member of the Cambridge Apostles. In the 1920s, he became acquainted with other members of the Bloomsbury Group. He was romantically involved with the economist John Maynard Keynes, who was at the time also seeing the ballerina Lydia Lopokova. Sprott's affair with Keynes ended after Keynes married Lopokova. After a job as a demonstrator at the Psychological Laboratory in Cambridge, he moved to the University of Nottingham, where he eventually became professor of philosophy.


©Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938)/NPG Ax142600. Dora Carrington; Stephen Tomlin; Walter John Herbert ('Sebastian') Sprott; Lytton Strachey, 1926 (©4)
Sebastian Sprott was a British psychologist and writer. Charm and wit and oratorical skill led him effortlessly into the magic circle of John Maynard Keynes's close friends; he became an intimate of E.M. Forster, who eventually made him his literary executor, and of Lytton Strachey. He regularly went riding with Keynes, accompanied him on a holiday to Algeria and Tunisia in 1921, and was probably his last male lover. This intimacy, though not the friendship, ended with Keynes's marriage to Lydia Lopokova in 1925.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._J._H._Sprott

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Charles Henri Ford (February 10, 1913 - September 27, 2002) was an American poet, novelist, filmmaker, photographer, and collage artist best known for his editorship of the Surrealist magazine View (1940-1947) in New York City, and as the partner of the artist Pavel Tchelitchew.

Born in Brookhaven, Mississippi, he dropped out of high school and by age 16 he had started his first magazine, Blues(subtitled "A Bisexual Bimonthly"). Actress Ruth Ford (1911-2009) was his sister and only known sibling.

Not long after, he became part of Gertrude Stein's salon in Paris, where he met Natalie Barney, Man Ray, Kay Boyle, Janet Flanner, Peggy Guggenheim, Djuna Barnes and others of the American expatriate community in Montparnasse and Saint-Germain-des-Près. He went to Morocco in 1932 at the suggestion of Paul Bowles, and there he typed Barnes' just-completed novel, Nightwood (1936), for her.

With Parker Tyler, who would later become a highly respected film critic, he co-authored The Young and Evil (1933), an energetically experimental novel with obvious debts to fellow writer Djuna Barnes, and also to Gertrude Stein, who called it "the novel that beat the Beat Generation by a generation". The novel portrays a collection of young genderqueer artists as they write poems, have sex, move in and out of cheap rented rooms, and duck into the neighborhood's many speakeasies. The characters' gender and sexual identities are presented candidly; it was this candor which was reportedly the reason for its rejection by several American and British publishers. It was finally picked up by Obelisk Press in Paris.


Charles Henri Ford and Pavel Tchelitchew by Cecil Beaton
Pavel Tchelitchew was a Russian-born surrealist painter, set designer and costume designer. He left Russia in 1920, lived in Berlin from 1921 to 1923, and moved to Paris in 1923. In 1933 Charles Henri Ford traveled to Europe for the first time to meet artists and writers. In Paris he met Pavel Tchelitchew. Pavel, apparently dazzled by Ford, moved with Ford to New York City and thus began the stormy 26-year relationship that continued until Tchelitchew's death in 1957.


Charles Henri Ford [with Indra Tamang], 1989, by Robert Giard
Charles Henri Ford also had a long connection with Nepal, where he bought a house. He brought Indra Tamang, a young man of 21 from a Nepalese village, back to New York City to be his caretaker. Ford died in 2002. He was survived by his elder sister, actress Ruth Ford, who died in 2009. Upon her death, Ruth Ford left the apartments she owned in the historic Dakota Building on the Upper West Side to Indra Tamang, along with a valuable Russian surrealist art collection, making him a millionaire.( Read more... )

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

( Read more... )

Pavel Tchelitchew (Russian Павел Фёдорович Челищев) (21 September 1898, Moscow - 31 July 1957, Rome) was a Russian-born surrealist painter, set designer and costume designer. He left Russia in 1920, lived in Berlin from 1921 to 1923, and moved to Paris in 1923. In Paris Tchelitchew became acquainted with Gertrude Stein and, through her, the Sitwell and Gorer families. He and Edith Sitwell had a long-standing close friendship and they corresponded frequently. In 1933 Charles Henri Ford traveled to Europe for the first time to meet artists and writers. In Paris he met Pavel Tchelitchew. Pavel, apparently dazzled by Ford, moved with Ford to New York City and thus began the stormy 26-year relationship that continued until Tchelitchew's death in 1957. (Picture: Pavel Tchelitchew, 1934, by Carl Van Vechten)

His first U.S. show was of his drawings, along with other artists, at the newly-opened Museum of Modern Art in 1930. In 1934, he moved from Paris to New York City with his partner, writer Charles Henri Ford. From 1940 to 1947, he provided illustrations for the Surrealist magazine View, edited by Ford and writer and film critic Parker Tyler. His most significant work is the painting Hide and Seek, painted in 1940–42, and currently on display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He became a United States citizen in 1952 and died in Grottaferrata, Italy in 1957.

Tchelitchew's early painting was abstract in style, described as Constructivist and Futurist and influenced by his study with Aleksandra Ekster in Kiev. After emigrating to Paris he became associated with the Neoromanticism movement. He continuously experimented with new styles, eventually incorporating multiple perspectives and elements of surrealism and fantasy into his painting. As a set and costume designer, he collaborated with Serge Diaghliev and George Balanchine, among others. 

( Read more... )

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

( more paintings )




Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Gilbert Prousch, sometimes referred to as Gilbert Proesch, (born 17 September 1943 in San Martin de Tor, Italy) and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942 in Plymouth, United Kingdom) are two artists who work together as a collaborative duo called Gilbert & George. They are known for their distinctive and highly formal appearance and manner and also for their brightly coloured graphic-style photo-based artworks.

Prousch was born in San Martin de Tor in South Tyrol, northern Italy, his mother tongue being Ladin. He studied art at the Sëlva School of Art and Hallein School of Art in Austria and the Akademie der Kunst, Munich, before moving to England.

Passmore was born in Plymouth in the United Kingdom, to a single mother in a poor household. He studied art at the Dartington College of Arts and the Oxford School of Art.

The two first met on 25 September 1967 while studying sculpture at Saint Martin's School of Art. The two claim they came together because George was the only person who could understand Gilbert's rather poorly-spoken English. In a 2002 interview with the Daily Telegraph, they said of their meeting: "it was love at first sight". They have claimed that they married in 2008.


Gilbert Prousch (born 17 September 1943) and George Passmore (born 8 January 1942) are two artists who work together as a collaborative duo called Gilbert & George. The two first met on 25 September 1967 while studying sculpture at Saint Martin's School of Art. The two claim they came together because George was the only person who could understand Gilbert's rather poorly-spoken English. In a 2002 interview with the Daily Telegraph, they said of their meeting: "it was love at first sight".

( Read more... )

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Proesch

( Further Readings )

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

More Real Life Romances at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (September 16, 1856 – February 16, 1931) was a German photographer who worked mainly in Italy. He is mostly known for his pastoral nude studies of Sicilian boys, which usually featured props such as wreaths or amphoras suggesting a setting in the Greece or Italy of antiquity. From a modern standpoint, his work is commendable due to his controlled use of lighting as well as the often elegant poses of his models. Innovative use of photographic filters and special body makeup (a mixture of milk, olive oil, and glycerin) to disguise skin blemishes contribute to the artistic perfection of his works.

Famous in his own day, his work was subsequently eclipsed for close to a century, only to re-emerge in recent times as "the most important gay visual artist of the pre–World War I era" according to Thomas Waugh.

Although von Gloeden claimed to be a minor German aristocrat from Mecklenburg, the von Gloeden family and its heirs have always insisted that no such person existed in their family records and his claim to The Barony von Gloeden was without warrant; the barony became extinct in 1885 with the death of Baron Falko von Gloeden. Wilhelm von Gloeden was the son of head forester (Forstmeister) Carl Hermann von Gloeden (1820–1862) and his wife Charlotte née Maassen (1824–1901; from 1864 von Hammerstein).

After studying art history in Rostock (1876), he studied painting under Carl Gehrts at the Kunstakademie in Weimar (1876–77) until he was forced by lung disease (apparently tuberculosis) to interrupt his schooling for a year, convalescing at a sanatorium in the Baltic Sea resort of Gröbersdorf. In a search for health, he travelled to Italy (1877–78), first staying in Naples before moving on to Taormina in Sicily. He lodged at the Hotel Vittoria before buying a house near San Domenico.


Il Moro
Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden was a German photographer who worked mainly in Italy. He is mostly known for his pastoral nude studies of Sicilian boys. In total, the Baron took over 3000 images (and possibly up to 7000), which after his death were left to one of his models, Pancrazio Buciunì, known as Il Moro (or U Moru) for his North African looks. Il Moro had been von Gloeden's lover since the age of fourteen. Most of the pictures are now in the Fratelli Alinari photographic archive in Florence.


Caino, 1902

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

In the 1870s, English art critic John Addington Symonds wrote about Michelangelo's and da Vinci's nudes, explicitly associating them with contemporary male-male desire. At the same time, in Sicily, German photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden began taking photographs of local young male peasants in "classical" poses. His work with clothed models garnered popular attention in Europe and America.
Von Gloeden's more explicitly erotic photos of nude males, many of them in sexually suggestive poses, also gained attention among American and European men who identified as lovers of men.
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Most art historians agree that von Gloeden had sexual relationships with men and that Day, Eakins, and Sargent had romantic, if not physical, relationships with men. Women and men who desired their own sex had not found a significant level of freedom in America. But these female and male artists were able to live with a certain amount of visibility, with privileges the ordinary person did not have. --A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski

( more photographs )

( Further Readings )

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

More Real Life Romances at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Algernon Islay de Courcy Lyons (1922–1993) was a notable Welsh photographer, novelist and linguist.

Born in Langland, Glamorgan, Wales on 7 March 1922, the son of Captain John Algernon de Courcy Lyons, M.C. and Doris Ada Campbell Young. In his lifetime, he was normally just called Islay (pronounced eye-la). (Source unspecified: Lyons was educated at Bradfield College, Berkshire and Grenoble University. He was at Grenoble when World War II broke out. He made a daring escape over the Pyrenees, was caught and imprisoned in Spain from where he manage to escape and work his way back to England where he joined up and served in the Royal Air Force for the rest of the war. He served first in North Africa and then he was sent to the Far East to learn Japanese in 3 months. He did this with amongst others, Richard Mason, who was a lifelong friend and cousin by marriage. Lyons is portrayed by the character 'Peter' in Mason's book 'The Wind Cannot Read'.)

The photographs of Lyons illustrate the works of several twentieth century literary figures, including Bryher and Graham Greene.

Lyons had been the last lover of the film-maker, Kenneth Macpherson, both of them living in the ‘Villa Tuoro’ on Capri. Norman Douglas was their constant companion, there, during the last years of Douglas’s life. Both Macpherson and Lyons were at Norman Douglas’s bedside when he died.

Lyons was a close friend of photographer, Canadian, Roloff Beny.


Kenneth Macpherson, photo by Islay Lyons
Islay Lyons was a notable Welsh photographer, novelist and linguist. During the WWII, he served in North Africa and then he was sent to the Far East to learn Japanese in 3 months. He did this with amongst others, Richard Mason, who was a lifelong friend and cousin by marriage. Lyons is portrayed by the character 'Peter' in Mason's book 'The Wind Cannot Read'.  Lyons had been the last lover of the film-maker, Kenneth Macpherson, both of them living in the ‘Villa Tuoro’ on Capri.


Smiling man in bed

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algernon_Islay_de_Courcy_Lyons & http://padraigrooney.com/blog/?p=330

Bryher (September 2, 1894 – January 28, 1983) was the pen name of the novelist, poet, memoirist, and magazine editor Annie Winifred Ellerman. She was born in September 1894 in Margate. Her father was the shipowner and financier John Ellerman, who at the time of his death in 1933, was the richest Englishman who had ever lived. He lived with her mother Hannah Glover, but did not marry her until 1908. (Picture: Bryher by Carl Van Vechten)

She traveled in Europe as a child, to France, Italy and Egypt. At the age of fourteen she was enrolled in a traditional English boarding school and at around this time her mother and father married. On one of her travels, Ellerman journeyed to the Isles of Scilly off the southwestern coast of Great Britain and acquired her future pseudonym from her favourite island, Bryher.

During the 1920s, Bryher was an unconventional figure in Paris. Among her circle of friends were Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach and Berenice Abbott. Her wealth enabled her to give financial support to struggling writers, including Joyce and Edith Sitwell. She also helped with finance for Sylvia Beach's bookshop Shakespeare and Company and certain publishing ventures, and started a film company Pool Group. She also helped provide funds to purchase a flat in Paris for the destitute Dada artist and writer Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.


H.D. and Bryher

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

H.D. (born Hilda Doolittle) (September 10, 1886 – September 27, 1961) was an American poet, novelist and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington. The Imagist model was based on the idioms, rhythms and clarity of common speech, and freedom to choose subject matter as the writer saw fit. H.D.'s later writing developed on this aesthetic to incorporate a more female-centric version of modernism.

H.D. was born in Pennsylvania in 1886, and moved to London in 1911 where her publications earned her a central role within the then emerging Imagism movement. A charismatic figure, she was championed by the modernist poet Ezra Pound, who was instrumental in building and furthering her career. From 1916–17, she acted as the literary editor of the Egoist journal, while her poetry appeared in the English Review and the Transatlantic Review. During the First World War, H.D. suffered the death of her brother and the breakup of her marriage to the poet Richard Aldington, and these events weighed heavily on her later poetry. She had a deep interest in Ancient Greek literature, and her poetry often borrowed from Greek mythology and classical poets. Her work is noted for its incorporation of natural scenes and objects, which are often used to emote a particular feeling or mood. (Picture: H.D. (sitting) and Bryher in her later years, courtesy of Catherine Aldington Guillaume)

She befriended Sigmund Freud during the 1930s, and became his patient in order to understand and express her bisexuality. H.D. married once, and undertook a number of heterosexual and lesbian relationships. She was unapologetic about her sexuality, and thus became an icon for both the gay rights and feminist movements when her poems, plays, letters and essays were rediscovered during the 1970s and 1980s. This period saw a wave of feminist literature on the gendering of Modernism and psychoanalytical misogyny, by a generation of writers who saw her as an early icon of the feminist movement.


Bryher and H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) during the filming of Borderline (1930)
Close to the end of the war, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle 1886-1961) met the wealthy English novelist Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman 1894-1983). They lived together until 1946, and although both took numerous other partners, Bryher remained her lover for the rest of H.D.'s life. From 1920, her relationship with Bryher became closer and the pair travelled in Egypt, Greece and the United States before eventually settling in Switzerland. Bryher married H.D.'s new male lover, bisexual Kenneth Macpherson.

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

Jimmie Daniels, a nightclub singer who participated in the Kool Jazz Festival's ''Evening of the Music of Harold Arlen'' at Carnegie Hall, died on June 29, 1984 in St. Clare's Hospital after suffering a stroke. He was 76 years old and lived in Manhattan.

Mr. Daniels's repertory focused on the songs of the Gershwins, Rodgers and Hart and Cole Porter as well as Harold Arlen. He worked in New York, Paris, London and Monaco.

James Lesley Daniels was born in Laredo, Tex. From 1939 to 1942, before going into military service, he owned and operated the Harlem supper club that bore his name. Later, he was on the bill at such clubs as the Bon Soir and Little Casino. Most recently he performed at Jan Wallman's Restaurant in Greenwich Village. (Picture: Kenneth Macpherson)

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/02/obituaries/jimmie-daniels-singer-dies-performed-in-new-york-clubs.html

"A fresh-faced teenager, Jimmie Daniels arrived in Harlem sometime during the mid-1920's. He was lithe, delicate, and had an engaging, infectious smile that he would soon learn to use to his advantage. Singer Alberta Hunter, a lifelong friend, remembered the time well. "This one was just a little one" she said. "Handsome? Oh, was he handsome! He had hair as red as fire, and his folks had money." Dare anyone have said that they thought the young, refined singer with the impeccable style, grace and proper enunciation was just a little snobbish and affectatious, too?


Daniels and Macpherson out on the town in Harlem with their friend, Lloyd Thomas (actress Edna Thomas' husband)
Richmond Barthe said he chose Jimmie Daniels as his subject because of his dazzling smile, but it was actually Kenneth Macpherson's wife, Winifred Ellerman aka Bryher, who commissioned the bust. Kenneth Macpherson was Jimmie Daniels' lover and his was a marriage of convenience. Bryher supported her husband, who in turn supported Jimmie, thus affording him a high-class life in a Greenwich Village apartment for several years.

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Source: http://illkeepyouposted.typepad.com/ill_keep_you_posted/2012/02/jimmie-daniels.html

Many of the gay-oriented clubs were located in the area between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, from 130th to 138th Street, where most of Harlem’s best-known clubs were clustered. The Cotton Club, Connie’s Inn, Barron’s, the Lenox, and other clubs that attracted a large (and sometimes exclusively) white trade were in this district, along with the Savoy Ballroom, Small’s Paradise, and other clubs welcoming a largely black or interracial audience. Many of the district’s most notorious speakeasies and clubs lined a strip on 133rd Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenues known as “The Jungle.” Gay entertainers with large gay followings were featured at several of the district’s clubs, including the Hot Cha at 132nd Street and Seventh Avenue, where the well-known entertainer and host Jimmie Daniels sang sophisticated tunes. A handful of clubs catered to lesbians and gay men, including the Hobby Horse, Tillie’s Kitchen, and the Dishpan, and other well-known clubs, including Small’s Paradise, welcomed their presence.
[...]
The organization of the Hamilton Lodge ball codified the differences between the public styles of middle-class and working-class gay men. Middle-class men passing as straight sat in the balcony with other members of Harlem’s social elite looking down on the spectacle of workingmen in drag. Although the newspapers regularly noted the appearance of Caska Bonds, Harold Jackman, Edward G. Perry, Clinton Moore, Eddie Manchester, Jimmie Daniels, and other middle-class gay men at the balls, they simply included them in the lists of other celebrities and society people in attendance, all presumed to be straight.119 Some of the society people they joined to watch the queers must have known of their involvement in the gay life, and undoubtedly some of the reporters and readers of the papers knew as well. But all concerned seem to have agreed not to say anything. --Chauncey, George (1995-05-18). Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. BASIC. Kindle Edition.

Philip Johnson found his first serious lover in Harlem-an extremely handsome cafe singer named Jimmie Daniels. Johnson met Daniels during one of his excursions uptown with the composer Virgil Thomson. The architect was enchanted by Daniels, whom he later referred to as "the first Mrs. Johnson." There would be three more "Mrs. Johnsons" after him. Daniels was "a most charming man," Johnson recalled six decades later. "I still look back with greatest pleasure. I was the envy of all downtown. It was so chic in those days-it was what one did if one was really up to date. Those were the days when you just automatically went to Harlem. I had an older friend living in a midtown hotel, and he had an open Chrysler. And every evening when it was still light, we'd go up there. We knew that Harlem was the only place there was any freedom. "We went to the house of an English lady who lived with a black actress-lesbians," Johnson continued. "And in that house Jimmie also lived as a boarder. So it was comfortable and familial. There was also a husband around. I'd spend the night there. I tried to have him downtown; it didn't work so well. They'd say, `I'm sorry we're full tonight'-a totally empty dining room. Even in New York City in the 1930s. "He was a beautiful, beautiful kid," Johnson recalled. "I was always interested in younger people." Daniels was eighteen and Johnson was twenty-five. The affair ended after a year: "A terrible man stole him away-who had better sex with him, I gather. But I was naughty. I went to Europe and I would never think of taking Jimmie along. I had rather an upper-lower-class feeling about him. I didn't realize it at the time, but it must have galled him. Everything that I was doing that was interesting, he wouldn't be included. Terrible way to treat anybody." Virgil Thomson was so impressed by Jimmie Daniels's "impeccable enunciation" that he decided to write an opera "sung by Negroes." The result was Four Saints in Three Acts, with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Daniels had sung in clubs throughout Europe during the thirties, and he became a fixture of New York nightlife. In 1939, he opened Jimmie Daniels' at 114 West 116th Street, an establishment that The New Yorker described as a "model of dignity and respectability" by "Harlem standards." Ten years later Daniels was the host at the Bon Soir on West 8th Street, where "blacks and whites [and] gays and straights mingled without a trace of tension," according to the historian James Gavin. Barbra Streisand, Phyllis Diller, and Kaye Ballard all eventually performed there.--Charles Kaiser. The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America (Kindle Locations 663-678). Kindle Edition.

Kenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker. It is only in recent years that Macpherson's contribution to cinematography has come to be recognised with the re-discovery of his work, which, though limited in output, was far ahead of its time, both in subject matter and cinematic technique. His 1930 film, Borderline, is now vey much part of the curriculum in the study of modern cinematography today. In his work with the Pool Group (1927–1933), which he co-founded with Bryher and HD, Macpherson also established the influential film journal, Close Up.

Little is known of Macpherson's early life, the pre-Pool Group period, although much is made of his post-Pool Group years, which appear to have been colourful. One commentator goes as far as to disingenuously identify, for interested parties, the source of 'a lurid description of his personal life during his New York years'. Macpherson's story began in 1927, when he married English writer, Annie Winifred Ellerman, (known as Bryher in the literary world), the daughter of a British shipping magnate. Bryher's inherited fortune would help to finance Macpherson's projects. Although Bryher's and Macpherson's marriage lasted for twenty years, for much of the marriage, both Macpherson and Bryher had extra-marital affairs. Bryher was lesbian but Macpherson was distinctly bi-sexual.

A sexual partner, common to both Bryher and Macpherson, was the American poet, Hilda Doolittle (known in literary circles as "HD"). Doolittle had been a close friend of Bryher's since 1921. They had a lesbian relationship, spending a lot of time together in Riant Chateau, Territet, Switzerland, where Bryher had a house. Not long after their marriage, Macpherson and Bryher moved to Territet, later joined by Doolittle, who brought along her 9 year old daughter, Perdita. (Perdita's father was Cecil Gray, the Scottish music critic and composer). In 1928, Doolittle had a sexual relationship with Macpherson, becoming pregnant by him. The pregnancy would be aborted later that year. In the same year, Macpherson and Bryher formally adopted Perdita, registering her name as Frances Perdita Macpherson.


Kenneth Macpherson and H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) nursing tiger cubs, Territet, Switzerland, 1928
Bryher was the pen name of the novelist, poet, memoirist, and magazine editor Annie Winifred Ellerman. In 1927 she married Kenneth Macpherson, a writer who shared her interest in film and who was at the same time H.D.'s lover (H.D. was Bryher’s lover as well). In Burier, Switzerland, overlooking Lake Geneva, the couple built a Bauhaus-style style structure that doubled as a home and film studio, which they named Kenwin. They formally adopted H.D.'s young daughter, Perdita.

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

George Norman Douglas (8 December 1868 – 7 February 1952) was a British writer, now best known for his 1917 novel South Wind. (P: Norman Douglas in 1935)

Norman Douglas was born in Thüringen, Austria (his surname was registered at birth as Douglass). His mother was Vanda von Poellnitz. His father was John Sholto Douglas (1845–1874), manager of a cotton mill, who died in a climbing accident when Douglas was about six. He spent the first years of his life on the family estate, Villa Falkenhorst, in Thüringen.

Douglas was brought up mainly in Scotland at Tilquhillie, Deeside, his paternal home. He was educated at Yarlet Hall and Uppingham School in England, and then at a grammar school in Karlsruhe. Douglas's paternal grandfather was the 14th Laird of Tilquhillie. Douglas's maternal great-grandfather was General James Ochoncar Forbes, 17th Lord Forbes.

He started in the diplomatic service in 1894 and from then until 1896 was based in St. Petersburg, but was placed on leave following a sexual scandal. In 1897 he bought a villa (Villa Maya) in Posillipo, a maritime suburb of Naples. The next year he married a cousin Elizabeth Louisa Theobaldina FitzGibbon (their mothers were sisters, daughters of Baron Ernst von Poellnitz). They had two children, Louis Archibald (Archie) and Robert Sholto (Robin), but divorced in 1903 on grounds of Elizabeth's infidelity. Norman's first book publication, (Unprofessional Tales (1901)) was written under the pseudonym Normyx, in collaboration with Elizabeth.


Norman Douglas, the old roué, photo by Islay Lyons
George Norman Douglas was a British writer, now best known for his 1917 novel South Wind.  Kenneth Macpherson bought a home on Capri, "Villa Tuoro", which he shared with his lover, the photographer, Algernon Islay de Courcy Lyons. Bryher, Macpherson’s wife, supported her husband and his friend on Capri, requesting that they take into their home the aging Douglas. Douglas had been friends of Bryher and Macpherson since 1931. Macpherson remained on Capri until Douglas's death in 1952.

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

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Elizabeth Shippen Green (September 1, 1871 – 1954) was an American illustrator. She illustrated children's books and worked for many years for Harper's Magazine.

Green studied with the painters Thomas Anshutz and Robert Vonnoh at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1889–1893). She then began study with Howard Pyle at Drexel Institute where she met Violet Oakley and Jessie Willcox Smith.

As educational opportunities were made more available in the 19th-century, women artists became part of professional enterprises, including founding their own art associations. Artwork made by women was considered to be inferior, and to help overcome that stereotype women became “increasingly vocal and confident” in promoting women's work, and thus became part of the emerging image of the educated, modern and freer “New Woman”. Artists "played crucial roles in representing the New Woman, both by drawing images of the icon and exemplifying this emerging type through their own lives.” In the late 19th-century and early 20th century about 88% of the subscribers of 11,000 magazines and periodicals were women. As women entered the artist community, publishers hired women to create illustrations that depict the world through a woman's perspective. Other successful illustrators were Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Rose O'Neill, and Violet Oakley.

Green was a member of Philadelphia's The Plastic Club, an organization established to promote "Art for art's sake". Other members included Elenore Abbott, Jessie Willcox Smith, and Violet Oakley. Many of the women who founded the organization had been students of Howard Pyle. It was founded to provide a means to encourage one another professionally and create opportunities to sell their works of art.


"The Journey": illustration for a series of poems by Josephine Preston Peabody, entitled "The Little Past", which relate experiences of childhood from a child's perspective. Published in Harper's Magazine, December 1903. Restored digital file from original oil painting.

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Shippen_Green

Jessie Willcox Smith (September 6, 1863 – May 3, 1935) was one of the most prominent female illustrators in the United States during the Golden Age of American illustration. She was a prolific contributor to respected books and magazines during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She illustrated stories and articles for clients such as Century, Collier's, Leslie's Weekly, Harper's, McClure's, Scribners, and the Ladies' Home Journal. She had an ongoing relationship with Good Housekeeping, including the long-running Mother Goose series of illustrations and creating all the covers from 1915 to 1933. Among the more than 60 books that Smith illustrated were Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and An Old-Fashioned Girl, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Evangeline, and Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses.

Jessie Willcox Smith was born in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest girl born to Charles Henry Smith, an investment broker, and Katherine DeWitt Willcox Smith. Jessie attended private elementary schools and at the age of sixteen she was sent to Cincinnati, Ohio to live with her cousins and finish her education. She trained to be a teacher and taught kindergarten in 1883, but found that the physical demands of working with children too strenuous for her; Due to back problems, she had difficulty bending down to their level. Persuaded to attend one of her friend or cousin's art classes, Smith realized she had a talent for drawing.

In 1884 or 1885, Smith attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design) and in 1885 attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia under Thomas Eakins and Thomas Anshute's supervision. It was under Eakins that Smith began to use photography as a resource in her illustrations. Although Eakins' demeanor could be difficult, particularly with female students, he became one of her first major influences. In May 1888, while Smith was still at the Pennsylvania Academy, her illustration Three Little Maidens All in a Row was published in the St. Nicholas Magazine. Illustration was a professional avenue that women could employ to make a living as an artist at the time. At this time, creating illustrations for children's books or of family life was considered an appropriate career for woman artists because it drew upon maternal instincts. Fine art that included life drawing was not considered lady-like. Illustration became a viable career partly due to improved color printing processes and the resurgence in England in book design. Smith graduated from PAFA in June 1888 and joined the first magazine for women, the Ladies' Home Journal the same year, where she had an entry-level position in the advertising department finishing rough sketches, designing borders, and preparing advertising art for the magazine. She illustrated the book of poetry New and True (1892) by Mary Wiley Staver.


Photograph of Violet Oakley and Jessie Willcox Smith facing the camera and Elizabeth Shippen Green and Henrietta Cozens , who are partially hidden, c. 1901, Violet Oakley papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Illustrators Jessie Wilcox Smith and Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Muralist Violet Oakley, took over the Red Rose Inn, a picturesque estate in Villanova, on Philadelphia's Main Line. They made a pact to live together forever - until one of them created havoc by marrying (Elizabeth Shippen Green in 1911). The three illustrators received the "Red Rose Girls" nickname. They later lived, along with Henrietta Cozens, in a home in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia that they named Cogslea after their four surnames (Cozens, Oakley, Green and Smith).

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_Willcox_Smith

Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 as a rural cemetery in Kings County, New York. It was granted National Historic Landmark status in 2006 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

There is buried Violet Oakley (June 10, 1874 – February 25, 1961), who, in 1902, received the largest public mural commission for an American woman until that time, at the Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg. She lived in a “Boston marriage” with three other female artists (nicknamed the Red Rose Girls).

Oakley and her two friends, the artists Elizabeth Shippen Green and Jessie Willcox Smith, all former students of Pyle, were named the Red Rose girls by him. The three illustrators received the "Red Rose Girls" nickname while they lived together in the Red Rose Inn in Villanova, Pennsylvania from 1899 to 1901. They later lived, along with Henrietta Cozens (1862 - 1940), in a home in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia that they named Cogslea after their four surnames (Cozens, Oakley, Green and Smith).

Violet Oakley was the first American woman to receive a public mural commission. During the first quarter of the twentieth century, she was renowned as a pathbreaker in mural decoration, a field that had been exclusively practiced by men. Oakley excelled at murals and stained glass designs that addressed themes from history and literature in Renaissance-revival styles.

Oakley was born in Bergen Heights (a section of Jersey City), New Jersey, into a family of artists. Her parents were Arthur Edmund Oakley and Cornelia Swain. Both of her grandfathers were member of the National Academy of Design. In 1892, she studied at the Art Students League of New York. A year later, she studied in England and France, under Raphaël Collin and others. After her return to the United States in 1896, she studied briefly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before she joined Howard Pyle's famous illustration class at Drexel Institute. She had early success as a popular illustrator for magazines including The Century Magazine, Collier's Weekly, St. Nicholas Magazine, and Woman's Home Companion. The style of her illustrations and stained glass reflects her emulation of the English Pre-Raphaelites. Oakley's commitment to Victorian aesthetics during the advent of Modernism led to the decline of her reputation by the middle of the twentieth century.


Violet Oakley Studio on the NRHP since September 13, 1977. At 627 St. George's Road in Mount Airy neighborhood of NW Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker is in front of this house, 621. The next house on the street is 631. There is a private drive between the 2, so the actual studio may be behind this building (if the apparent contradiction of the sources is forced to be resolved)

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Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Oakley

( Further Readings )

More Real Life Romances at my website: www.elisarolle.com

Anne Whitney (September 2, 1821 – January 23, 1915) was an American sculptor and poet. She was born in Watertown, Massachusetts and died Boston, Massachusetts. Other than notable public figures, she also sculpted members of her family and the painter Abby Adeline Manning (1836-1906), with whom Whitney is said to have had a "Boston marriage." Manning's work has since fallen into obscurity, and she is remembered now primarily as Whitney's longtime companion. (P: Sonrel. Portrait of Anne Whitney, 1874. Smithsonian / Regional Reports. Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 42, No. 1/2 (2002))

Hailing from a wealthy, liberal Unitarian Boston family, sculptor Anne Whitney was politically active in support of abolition and women's equality. Her choice of subjects--abolitionists, feminists, and blacks--reflected her political and social beliefs.

As a woman artist in a male-dominated field, Whitney experienced her own struggles for equality: in 1875, having been a sculptor for nearly twenty years, she entered a national competition for a sculpture of the abolitionist Charles Sumner. Whitney won the commission, only to be denied the job when it was realized that she was a woman.

It was "publicly decreed that a woman could not accurately sculpt a man's legs." Outraged all the more because the abolitionist subject was dear to her heart, and determined that such discrimination would not happen to her again, she never entered another competition. She did, however, decide to produce the statue anyway. It now stands outside Harvard Law School.


©Anne Whitney (1821-1915)/Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College. Abby Adeline Manning, 1861 (©4)
Anne Whitney was an American sculptor and poet. Whitney sculpted notable people but also the painter Abby Adeline Manning, with whom Whitney is said to have had a "Boston marriage." Manning's work has since fallen into obscurity, and she is remembered now primarily as Whitney's longtime companion.  Manning and Whitney perhaps met around 1862 when Anne was studying with the renowned William Rimmer. By 1878 Adeline and Anne were living and working in their new studio at 92 Mt. Vernon in Boston.


Abby Adeline Manning (June 1836 - May 21, 1906) & Anne Whitney (September 2, 1821 – January 23, 1915)'s ashes are buried under the same headstone in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

( Read more... )

Citation Information
Author: Williams, Carla
Entry Title: Whitney, Anne
General Editor: Claude J. Summers
Publication Name: glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture
Publication Date: 2002
Date Last Updated May 12, 2008
Web Address www.glbtq.com/arts/whitney_a.html
Publisher glbtq, Inc.
1130 West Adams
Chicago, IL 60607
Today's Date January 23, 2014
Encyclopedia Copyright: © 2002-2006, glbtq, Inc.
Entry Copyright © 2002, glbtq, Inc.

Further Readings:

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher

Margarett Sargent (August 31, 1892 - 1978) was born in 1892 into the privileged world of old Boston money (she was a distant relative of John Singer Sargent) and a life of rigid convention from which few (especially women) broke free. Art provided her ticket out of this claustral milieu. After breaking an engagement, she began her training in Italy as a sculptor (''If only we hadn't sent her to Europe,'' her family would say whenever she did something un-Bostonian, which was fairly often), and later turned to watercolors and oils. She had her first one-woman show in New York in 1926, quickly followed by others in Chicago and Boston. But just as she was establishing her reputation, she stopped exhibiting, and soon stopped painting altogether.

Margarett, 5 foot 10, raven-haired, ivory-skinned, blue-eyed, becomes a socialite, a student of Mount Rushmore's Gutzon Borglum and painter George Luks, a member of the artistic avant garde of New York and Boston, and, within conventions -- she's a virgin -- a seductress of note. She also may be having an affair with her New York roommate, Marjorie Davenport.

Her personal life was more shocking than her paintings, which reflected an expressionism not much in vogue at the time. She waited until 1920, and the age of 28, to marry another proper Bostonian, Quincy Adams Shaw McKean (November 1, 1891 – August 1971) , a polo-playing, dog-breeding Boston aristocrat and owner of a remarkable estate called Prides, who promises her a career but doesn't know what he's bargained for. They had four children in the next three years. The marriage had its problems (ironically, not conflicts over her career -- her husband accepted her artistic aspirations), and Margarett ''took to affairs,'' an old friend noted, ''as easily as to brushing her teeth.'' These affairs included both men and women, and many took place on Boston's North Shore at Prides, the McKean home, a 17th-century saltbox transformed into a Yankee palazzo so grand it required a staff of 13.


Sargent, Margarett W., Beyond Good and Evil (Self-Portrait), ca. 1930, Gift of Honor Moore, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College
Margarett Sargent was born into the privileged world of old Boston money; a socialite, a student of Mount Rushmore's Gutzon Borglum and painter George Luks, a member of the artistic avant-garde of New York and Boston. She also may be having an affair with her New York roommate, Marjorie Davenport. She married Quincy Adams Shaw McKean, a polo-playing, dog-breeding Boston aristocrat and owner of an estate called Prides. They had four children in the next 3 years.

( Read more... )

Source: www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/27/nnp/19414.html

Days of Love: Celebrating LGBT History One Story at a Time by Elisa Rolle
Paperback: 760 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 1, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1500563323
ISBN-13: 978-1500563325
CreateSpace Store: https://www.createspace.com/4910282
Amazon (Paperback): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500563323/?tag=elimyrevandra-20
Amazon (Kindle): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MZG0VHY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

Days of Love chronicles more than 700 LGBT couples throughout history, spanning 2000 years from Alexander the Great to the most recent winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Many of the contemporary couples share their stories on how they met and fell in love, as well as photos from when they married or of their families. Included are professional portraits by Robert Giard and Stathis Orphanos, paintings by John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini, and photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnson, Arnold Genthe, and Carl Van Vechten among others. “It's wonderful. Laying it out chronologically is inspired, offering a solid GLBT history. I kept learning things. I love the decision to include couples broken by death. It makes clear how important love is, as well as showing what people have been through. The layout and photos look terrific.” Christopher Bram “I couldn’t resist clicking through every page. I never realized the scope of the book would cover centuries! I know that it will be hugely validating to young, newly-emerging LGBT kids and be reassured that they really can have a secure, respected place in the world as their futures unfold.” Howard Cruse “This international history-and-photo book, featuring 100s of detailed bios of some of the most forward-moving gay persons in history, is sure to be one of those bestsellers that gay folk will enjoy for years to come as reference and research that is filled with facts and fun.” Jack Fritscher