THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY SEPTEMBER 21

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

SEPTEMBER 21

1898 – PAVEL TCHELITCHEW, Russian surrealist painter, born (d: 1957) His father, a follower of Tolstoyian principles, supported his desire to become a painter. In spite of his father's liberal views, however, the family was expelled from its property in 1918 following the revolution of 1917. Tchelitchew joined the White army, and the family fled to Kiev, which was not yet under Communist control. While in Kiev he studied with Alexandra Exter and produced his first theater designs.



By 1920 he was in Odessa, escaping the advancing Red armies. He went on to Berlin via Istanbul. There he met Allen Tanner, an American pianist, and became his lover. In 1923 they moved to Paris and Tchelitchew began painting portraits of the avant-garde and homosexual elite.



Tchelitchew developed a predilection for outrageous blues and pinks, calling himself the "Prince of Bad Taste." Gertrude Stein noticed his entry in the 1925 Salon D'Automne, Basket of Strawberries (1925), and bought the entire contents of his studio. In addition to becoming an accomplished painter, he also became one of the most innovative stage designers of the period and designed ballets for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes in Paris. Tchelitchew's American debut was in a group show of drawings at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1930.



In 1934 he moved to New York with his new lover, writer and critic Charles Henri Ford, and exhibited in the Julien Levy Gallery. He and Ford were at the center of a social world of wealthy Gay men, such as Lincoln Kirstein, for whom he also designed ballets. He continued his work in design for Balanchine's fledgling American Ballet and for A. Everett "Chick" Austin, a friend and director of the pioneering Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.



In 1952 Tchelitchew became a U.S. citizen, but shortly afterwards moved to Frascati, Italy. He suffered a heart attack in 1956 and died on July 31, 1957 in Rome, with Ford by his bedside.



While Tchelitchew was trained in traditional classical drawing, his earliest influences were cubism and constructivism. He soon reacted against their emphasis on the geometric shapes of cones and cubes and began working in curves, a decision that led to his representational style, which used every traditional device of anatomy and perspective.



In 1926 he was included by the Galerie Druet, Paris, in a group show the title of which gave rise to the appellation "Neo-Romantic," a designation applied to an amorphous combination of figurative painters of various temperaments and attitudes. The artist always disapproved of the term; and in spite of similarities of his work with such artists as Salvador Dalí, he also always denied any association with Surrealism.



Phenomena (1936-1938), the first painting of a projected series of three major works, aroused violent reactions because of its lurid color and characterization of persons then still alive (including a self-portrait and images of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas). The most prominent of the nude male figures in this painting is Nicholas Magallanes, a favorite model, who later became a famous dancer.



The second work, Hide and Seek (1940-1942), a strikingly red painting of an enormous tree composed of human body parts, remains one of the most popular paintings in the Museum of Modern Art. The final work in the series was never finished. Tchelitchew's later style developed as a result of his search for "interior landscapes" inspired by metamorphoses of the human body.



His works include, in addition to well-known nudes such as Tattooed Man (1934), a number of pen-and-ink sketches that illustrate homoerotic desire, some of which are housed in the Kinsey Collection of erotic art. The artist also executed watercolor illustrations of the Gay novel by Ford and Parker Tyler, The Young and Evil (1933). These illustrations were not published with the text until 1988.



Tchelitchew's critical reputation declined in the 1950s and 1960s along with the decline of interest in figurative art. The retrospective that was the opening exhibition of Huntington Hartford's conservative Gallery of Modern Art in New York in 1964 was the last museum survey of his career until the 1998 exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York.



For more, and images: http://kinseyinstitute.org/services/gallery/russia/tchelitchew.php



1902 - LUIS CERNUDA (born Luis Cernuda Bidón September 21, 1902, Seville – November 1963, Mexico City), was a Spanish poet and literary critic. The central concerns of this poet are evident in the title of his life's major opus: La realidad y el deseo ("Reality and Desire"). He published his first collection of verse, Perfil del aire ("Air's profile"), in 1927. Several books followed, and he collected new and already published poetry under this title in 1936. Subsequent editions would include new poetry as new books inside La realidad y el deseo. Expanded on almost until his death in 1963, in this work the poet explores desire, love, subject, object, history and sexuality in poems which draw influences from romanticism, classicism, and the surrealist avant-garde. Besides verse, he also published a collection of reminiscent prose poems, 'Ocnos', about his childhood in Seville.



Cernuda is known as a member of the Generation of '27, a group of Spanish poets and artists including Federico García Lorca. He broke new ground with Los Placeres Prohibidos ("Forbidden Pleasures"), an avant-garde work in which the poet used surrealism to explore his sexuality.



Deeply influenced by André Gide, Cernuda embraced his homosexuality at an early age and made homosexual desire and love the core of his poetry. Or, at least, unlike other Gay poets at the time, in his poetry he was never ambiguous about the fact that the objects of his desire and love were men. One of the most influential poets in contemporary Spanish poetry, he is definitely a crucial ground-breaking figure for homosexual writing in Spanish.



During the Spanish Civil War, deeply moved by the assassination of Federico Garcia Lorca, Cernuda fled to England, where he began an exile that later took him to France, Scotland, Massachusetts (Mount Holyoke College), California and finally settling in Mexico; he never returned to Spain.



1955 - DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS, the first Lesbian organization, is formed by four Lesbian couples, including Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. As the DOB gained members, their focus shifted to providing support to women who were afraid to come out, by educating them about their rights and gay history. Historian Lillian Faderman declared, "Its very establishment in the midst of witch hunts and police harassment was an act of courage, since members always had to fear that they were under attack, not because of what they did, but merely because of who they were."



In 1955, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon had been together as lovers for three years when they complained to a gay male couple that they did not know any other lesbians. The gay couple introduced Martin and Lyon to another lesbian couple, one of whom suggested they create a social club. In October 1955, eight women — four couples — met to provide each other with a social outlet. One of their priorities was to have a place to dance, as dancing with the same sex in a public place was illegal. Martin and Lyon recalled later, "Women needed privacy...not only from the watchful eye of the police, but from gaping tourists in the bars and from inquisitive parents and families." Although unsure of how exactly to proceed with the group, they began to meet regularly, realized they should be organized, and quickly elected Martin as president. From the start they had a clear focus to educate other women about lesbians, and reduce their self-loathing brought on by the socially repressive times.



Within a year of its creation, most of the original eight participants were no longer part of the group, but their numbers had grown to 16, and they decided they wanted to be more than only a social alternative to bars. Historian Marcia Gallo writes "They recognized that many women felt shame about their sexual desires and were afraid to admit them. They knew that...without support to develop the self-confidence necessary to advocate for one's rights, no social change would be possible for lesbians."

By 1959 there were chapters of the DOB in New York City (see yesterday's Daily GayWisdom), Los Angeles, Chicago and Rhode Island along with the original chapter in San Francisco. Upon arrival at a meeting, attendees would be greeted at the door. In a show of good faith, the greeter would say, "I'm ---. Who are you? You don't have to give me your real name, not even your real first name."

Soon after forming, the DOB wrote a mission statement that addressed the most significant problem Martin and Lyon had faced as a couple: the complete lack of information about female homosexuality in what historian Martin Meeker termed, "the most fundamental journey a lesbian has to make." When the club realized they were not allowed to advertise their meetings in the local newspaper, Lyon and Martin, who both had backgrounds in journalism, began to print a newsletter to distribute to as many women as the group knew. In October 1956 it became The Ladder, the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the U.S. and one of the first to publish statistics on lesbians, when they mailed surveys to their readers in 1958 and 1964. Martin was the first president and Lyon became the editor of The Ladder.

The DOB advertised itself as "A Woman's Organization for the purpose of Promoting the Integration of the Homosexual into Society." The statement was composed of four parts that prioritized the purpose of the organization, and it was printed on the inside of the cover of every issue of The Ladder until 1970:

1. Education of the variant...to enable her to understand herself and make her adjustment to society...this to be accomplished by establishing...a library...on the sex deviant theme; by sponsoring public discussions...to be conducted by leading members of the legal psychiatric, religious and other professions; by advocating a mode of behavior and dress acceptable to society.

2. Education of the public...leading to an eventual breakdown of erroneous taboos and prejudices...

3. Participation in research projects by duly authorized and responsible psychologists, sociologists, and other such experts directed towards further knowledge of the homosexual.

4. Investigation of the penal code as it pertain to the homosexual, proposal of changes,...and promotion of these changes through the due process of law in the state legislatures."

New York chapter president Barbara Gittings noted that the word "variant" was used instead of "Lesbian" in the mission statement, because "Lesbian" was a word that had a very negative meaning in 1956.



As a national organization, the Daughters of Bilitis folded in 1970, although some local chapters still continue. Grier also effectively ended The Ladder, despite her plans for the magazine to run on advertising (something The Ladder had not previously had) and subscriptions, when the $3,000 checks from "Pennsylvania", written to the DOB, stopped coming. By 1972, The Ladder had run out of funds and it folded.



Dozens of other lesbian and feminist organizations were created in the wake of the Daughters of Bilitis. However, the impact of the fourteen-year run of the DOB on the lives of women was described by historian Martin Meeker: "The DOB succeeded in linking hundreds of lesbians across the country with one another and gathering them into a distinctly modern communication network that was mediated through print and, consequently, imagination, rather than sight, sound, smell, and touch.



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