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 Speaking
for Vice : Homosexuality in the Art of Charles Demuth, Marsden
Hartley, and the First American Avant-Garde by
Jonathan Weinberg
This provocative book explores the
representation of male homosexuality in American art in the first
half of the twentieth century. Focusing on the work of Charles
Demuth and Marsden Hartley, it uncovers the sexual codes and
references in their art and explores how the two men reconciled
their production of a self-consciously "American" art
with the representation of their own marginalized status as both
homosexuals and avant-garde artists.
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Excerpt:
Charles Demuth was born in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, the only and indulged child of successful business
people--so financially secure that Demuth never had to work for a
living, although he was never wealthy. Biographer Barbara Haskell
indicates that a sense of self-certainty and stability permeated
Charles Demuth's family environment. At age four or five, Demuth
suffered from Perthes, a disease that left him with one short leg
due to deformation of the hip joint. At that time the prescribed
"cure" was six weeks in traction followed by one to two
years in bed...
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From the Demuth Foundation
Excerpt:
"Deem" as some of his friends called
him, was born in a Lancaster house on North Lime Street. At age 7,
he and his family moved to the King Street home where he spent
most of his lifetime. Demuth's health was frail; from an early age
he suffered from lameness and as an adult from severe diabetes. He
graduated from Franklin and Marshall Academy and studied at Drexel
Institute and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in
Philadelphia. As a young man he traveled to Paris where he was
part of the avant garde scene...
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Excerpt:
The American press has hailed Demuth's
accomplishments in no uncertain terms. Countless articles and
reviews have praised his pioneering contributions to 20th century
American art. In 1987, the Whitney Museum in New York published
the definitive work on Demuth to date, and described him as "
one of the most creative minds of the earlier twentieth century,
... a pioneer of modernism, ... and an important intellectual and
aesthetic force in the development of American art after World War
I. "
Recently published works on Demuth readily
acknowledge his homosexuality. His sexual orientation is, in fact,
impossible to ignore. Along with his landmark architectural
studies and floral watercolors, there exists a body of work that
is unquestionably homoerotic. Art scholars and historians now
present his colorful life in all its hues, and publish the
Provincetown sailors along with the Lancaster grain mills...
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Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
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