George Platt Lynes (April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955) was an American fashion and commercial photographer who worked in the 1930s and 1940s.[1] He produced photographs featuring many gay artists and writers from the 1940s that were acquired by the Kinsey Institute after his death in 1955.[2]
He returned to the United States with the idea of a literary career and he even opened a bookstore in Englewood, New Jersey in 1927. He first became interested in photography not with the idea of a career, but to take photographs of his friends and display them in his bookstore.
Returning to France the next year in the company of Wescott and Wheeler, he traveled around Europe for the next several years, always with his camera at hand. He developed close friendships within a larger circle of artists including Jean Cocteau and Julien Levy, an art dealer and critic. Levy would exhibit his photographs in his gallery in New York City in 1932 and Lynes would open his studio there that same year.
He was also most notably friends with Katherine Anne Porter,[5] author of the novel Ship of Fools, whom he often enjoyed photographing wearing elaborate evening gowns and occasionally reenacting Shakespeare.[6]
During his lifetime, Lynes amassed a substantial body of work involving nude and homoerotic photography. In the 1930s, he began taking nudes of friends, performers, and models, including a young Yul Brynner, although these remained private, unknown, and unpublished for years.[2] Over the following two decades, Lynes continued his work in this area passionately, albeit privately. "The depth and commitment he had in photographing the male nude, from the start of his career to the end, was astonishing. There was absolutely no commercial impulse involved — he couldn't exhibit it, he couldn't publish it." – Allen Ellenzweig, art and photography critic who wrote the introduction to George Platt Lynes: The Male Nudes, published in 2011 by Rizzoli.[7]
In the late 1940s, Lynes became acquainted with Dr. Alfred Kinsey and his Institute in Bloomington, Indiana.[7] Kinsey took an interest in Lynes work, as he was researching homosexuality in America at the time.[2] A large number of Lynes' nude and homoerotic works were left to the Kinsey Institute after his death in 1955.[4] The body of work residing at the Kinsey Institute remained largely unknown until it was made public and published later.[8] The Kinsey collection represents one of the largest single collections of Lynes's work.[7]
Personal lifeedit
For over ten years, Lynes had a love affair with both the curator Monroe Wheeler and the writer Glenway Wescott (1901–1987).[8] He later got together with his studio assistant and, after he died in World War II, Lynes moved in with the younger brother of the assistant.[8]
Los Angelesedit
Lynes was in Los Angeles from 1946-1948, living both before and after in New York City.[9] He first visited to vacation and meet some friends he knew there including novelists Katherine Anne Porter and Christopher Isherwood, and labor organizer Bernardine Szold Fritz.[9] Upon arriving there he met painter Mai-Mai Sze, costume designers Irene Sharaff and costume designer Adrian (costume designer), and Adrian's wife Janet Gaynor.[9] He also did portraits of the writers Thomas Mann and Aldous Huxley.[9] After meeting all these within a few weeks of his first visit, he decide to relocate from New York to explore the arts scene in LA.[9] Lynes still had commissions for photography with Vogue through their art director Alexander Liberman[9] After moving to LA, Lynes reconnected with socialite Denham Fouts, whom he had photographed in New York in the 30s and the two exchanged social networks.[9]
Deathedit
By May 1955, Lynes had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He closed his studio and was reported to have destroyed much of his print and negative archives, particularly his male nudes. However, it is now known that he had transferred many of these works to the Kinsey Institute. "He clearly was concerned that this work, which he considered his greatest achievement as a photographer, should not be dispersed or destroyed...We have to remember the time period we're talking about—America during the post-war Red Scare..."[7]
After a final trip to Europe, Lynes returned to New York City, where he died in 1955, while living with his brother and his family.[1]
^ abcd"GEORGE PLATT LYNES". The New York Times. December 7, 1955. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ abcd"Review/Photography; Another Side of a Life's Work, Elegantly Revealed". The New York Times. September 24, 1993. Archived from the original on April 22, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^"DR. J. R. LYNES DIES: QUIT BAR FOR CHURGH". The New York Times. December 3, 1932. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ ab"GEORGE PLATT LYNES". robertmillergallery.com. Robert Miller Gallery. Archived from the original on September 19, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ abJohnson, Ken (October 12, 2001). "ART IN REVIEW; 'Interwoven Lives' -- 'George Platt Lynes and His Friends'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 28, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^Titus, Mary (2005). The Ambivalent Art of Katherine Anne Porter. Atlanta, London: University of Georgia. pp. 155, 168–77, 187. ISBN 978-0-8203-2756-3.
^ abcdGeorge Platt Lynes, The Male Nudes: Rizzoli International Pub, 2011 ISBN 978-0-8478-3374-0, Afterward, Ellenzweig, Allen
^ abcLimnander, Armand (March 5, 2009). "Landed Gent". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 9, 2018. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^"Donald Windham". Obituaries. telegraph.co.uk. July 16, 2010. Archived from the original on July 19, 2010.
^Borchert, Gavin (April 26, 2023). "Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes". SIFF. Archived from the original on May 29, 2023. Retrieved June 17, 2023.
^"Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes". Newfields. February 24, 2019. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
^"Artists in the Cape Breton University Art Gallery Permanent Collection" (PDF). cbu.ca. Cape Breton University. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^Vogel, Carol (November 20, 1998). "INSIDE ART; The Modern Seeks Money". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 28, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^"George Platt Lynes". National Portrait Gallery, London. Archived from the original on June 15, 2020. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
Leddick, David (2000) [1999]. Intimate Companions: a Triography of George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, Lincoln Kirstein, and Their Circle. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-250-10478-6. OCLC 1035670535.
Leddick, David (2000). George Platt Lynes, 1907-1955. Foreword by Pohorilenko Anatole. Köln: Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-6403-6. OCLC 44604743.
Lynes, George Platt (2011). George Platt Lynes: The Male Nudes. New York: Rizzoli International Publications. ISBN 978-0-8478-3374-0.
Pohorilenko, Anatole; Crump, James (1998). When We Were Three: The travel albums of George Platt Lynes, Monroe Wheeler, and Glenway Wescott, 1925-1935. Santa Fe, NM; New York, NY: Arena Editions ; Distribution by D.A.P. ISBN 978-0-9657280-4-1. OCLC 607168707 – via Internet Archive.
Woody, Jack (1994). Portrait: The Photographs of George Platt Lynes, 1927–1955. Santa Fe: Twin Palms Publishers.
External linksedit
Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Platt Lynes.
Biography portal
Image of George Platt Lynes, Self-Portrait, Hollywood, California, 1947.
"George Platt Lynes". queer-arts.org. May 26, 1998. Archived from the original on June 9, 2021.