Commercial and fashion photographer George Platt Lynes (1907-1955) achieved fame after photographing notable writers, including Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Colette, and Andre Gide, and the George Balanchine/Lincoln Kirstein ballet companies which became the New York City Ballet. Privately, he produced a substantial collection of male nude and homoerotic photographs, many of which were acquired by the Kinsey Institute.

In this program sponsored by the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, biographer Allen Ellenzweig will discuss his new book, George Platt Lynes: The Daring Eye, which takes a closer look at the celebrated photographer and the gay and lesbian artistic network of which he was part. Through this lens, the book reconsiders the so-called “closet” assumed to be ubiquitous in pre-Stonewall gay life. Ellenzweig will also highlight historic queer places in New York City that shaped Lynes’ life and work as an early 20th century artist.

About the Author
Allen Ellenzweig is a cultural critic and commentator who has published in numerous arts and general interest periodicals, including The Village Voice and Art in America, as well as the online journals Tablet, The Forward, and Poetry Magazine. His landmark history, The Homoerotic Photograph: Male Images from Durieu/Delacroix to Mapplethorpe, was published in 1992. He is a regular contributor to the Gay & Lesbian Review/Worldwide and teaches in the Writing Program of Rutgers University. His biography, George Platt Lynes: The Daring Eye, is scheduled for publication in November 2021.

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