Yearly Archives: 2012

Photographs from the 1960s

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A stylistic precursor of such artists as Pierre et Gilles and David LaChapelle, James Bidgood revolutionized gay male erotic imagery. Bidgood was the first to take the pulp and glamour aesthetic of the 40s and 50s and apply it to male erotic fantasies.

From a cramped Hell’s Kitchen tenement apartment in the 1960s, artist James Bidgood was amazingly able to complete the bulk of his creative output – – photographs which employ vibrant colors and exaggerated props and costumes to celebrate the male form.

Smoking, Sandcastles

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(Bobby Kendall and Jay Garvin),
early 1960s

Signed, dated, and numbered, verso

Digital C-print

31 x 31 inches, image
(Edition of 15)
$4,500

22 x 22 inches, image
(Edition of 15)
$4,000

15 x 15 inches, image
(Edition of 25)
$2,000

Literature:
David Leddick, The Male Nude (Köln, Germany: Taschen, 2005), p. 356, full-page color illus.

From the wall label from the “Queer Love” exhibition at the Lehman College Art Gallery in New York:
Bathed in contrasting blue and golden light, two handsome young men lay entwined in what appears to be a grotto. One, eyes closed, inhales from a post-coital cigarette; the other looks at him admiringly. This fantastical setting, part of the artist’s “Sandcastles” series, was a first step towards the romanticized kitsch aesthetic that anticipated Bidgood’s most famous work, the film “Pink Narcissus,” released anonymously after editing disputes with the distribution company. That infamous 1971 film follows the erotic, poetic fantasies of a young male prostitute’s journey from innocence to decadence to abnegation. Admired by generations of artists and filmmakers, Bidgood’s flamboyant style stands as a foundational inspiration for many contemporary queer artists.