With many works hidden, lost to censorship, or destroyed, the rich history of LGBTQ+ artists has often been obscured. Yet these five artists – among many others – found a permanent home in the Kinsey Institute’s historical archives, which has safeguarded their legacy for future generations to discover, learn from, and appreciate.
Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979)
Dorothy Arzner was one of the first women to direct feature-length studio films in Hollywood, and certainly the first openly lesbian woman in the American directing industry. Beginning in 1927, Arzner would create 20 films in her career. She was invited to direct Paramount Studio’s first talking film The Wild Party (1929) and is credited with inventing the boom mic on that film set. She is known for strong, female-identifying roles, with stories that emphasized women’s agency and friendships with one another, radically pushing up against conventions of heteronormativity in American film at the time.
Arzner’s later work was critical of gender roles and power dynamics, with films such as Christopher Strong radically challenging patriarchal norms. As her work continued to empower women, and develop queer undertones, Arzner would eventually leave the industry to teach at UCLA, where she was a mentor to Francis Ford Coppola.
Kinsey Institute holdings of Arzner’s work include the promotional still shown here and a set photo from her film Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), her film Merrily We Go To Hell (1932) which dwelt on the effects of alcoholism on intimate relationships, and an interview with author Boze Hadleigh, published in Hollywood Lesbians.
Paul Cadmus (1904-1999)
Born on December 17th, 1904, in New York City, Cadmus was a painter and master draughtsman and is hailed as one of the masters of American Realism. He wove complex, often grotesque compositions inspired by artists of the Italian Renaissance. His work with light, shadow, depth, and a surgical understanding of human anatomy worked alongside satire and thematic allusions to gay life, nodding subtly to those in the community at the time through coded details of clothing and stereotypical postures or characters associated with homosexuality. Cadmus’ social circle in New York City included several artists who appear in the Kinsey Institute Collections, including his lovers Jared French and George Tooker, and photographer George Platt Lynes.
1934 would be a pivotal year for Cadmus – the year his painting The Fleet’s In! was pulled from a group exhibition of WPA artwork at The Corcoran in Washington D.C. when a US. Navy admiral found that its suggestions of homosexuality and sailors consorting with sex workers was disrespectful. This censorship propelled Cadmus into the public eye and encouraged him to turn the piece into an etching, exclaiming “They can tear up the canvas, but they will have a sweet time eating copper” (Bryan Martin, The MET, 2021). His 1935 engraving Horseplay reveals yet another example of the subtle homoeroticism that is emblematic of much of his work.
This engraving is one of almost 50 engravings, etchings, and drawings by Cadmus in the Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections. Cadmus himself also appears as a subject in multiple photographs by George Platt Lynes held in our collections.
Tee Corinne (1943-2006)
Tee Corinne was a significant figure in feminist and lesbian arts who made substantial contributions to the visibility and representation of lesbian experience through her work as an artist, photographer, writer, and activist. Her art often explored themes of sexuality, women’s bodies, and lesbian identity, making her a pioneer in queer visual culture.
Corinne is best known for her Cunt Coloring Book (1975), reissued in 1981 as Labiaflowers: A Coloring Book, which featured explicit and celebratory line drawings of female genitalia. This work was revolutionary in its positive and unapologetic depiction of women’s bodies.
Her photography was equally influential. Corinne’s Yantras of Womanlove (1982), combined images of women loving women with sacred geometry, creating a visual language that connected eroticism with spirituality. A more recent series, Scars, Stoma, Ostomy Bag, Portacath: Picturing Cancer in Our Lives (2005) documented the physical impact of cancer on women’s bodies, juxtaposing the beauty of the human form with the realities of illness and recovery.
Corinne was also an accomplished writer, authoring a novel, several short story collections, and poetry. She wrote about art for various publications including the Feminist Bookstore News. She was also actively involved in various feminist and lesbian organizations throughout her life, including co-founding the Women’s Press Collective in 1969, The Blatant Image, A Magazine of Feminist Photography in 1981, and the Gay & Lesbian Caucus of the College Art Association.
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989)
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer whose work explored themes of identity, sexuality, and the human form — often through the lens of his own queer experience. Born in 1946 in Floral Park, New York, Mapplethorpe studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, initially focusing on painting and sculpture before transitioning to photography in the late 1960s. His life and career were marked by both artistic breakthroughs and significant struggles, particularly due to his sexuality and the controversial nature of his work.
Mapplethorpe used his art to challenge societal norms and perceptions of love, intimacy, and the male body. His work often faced severe backlash and censorship, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s. Despite the controversies, he used his art to confront and dismantle societal taboos surrounding sexuality and identity.
One of his most renowned pieces is Embrace. Created in 1982, this photograph captures an intimate moment between two male figures, emphatically celebrating their union. Shot in the same year the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first used the term “AIDS” and four years before his own diagnosis, this photograph is a testament to Mapplethorpe’s ability to blend vulnerability with classical beauty, strength, found in the embrace of another amidst a climate of growing public prejudice and fear toward gay men. The Kinsey Institute holds 30 of Mapplethorpe’s artworks donated by The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
Laura Aguilar (1959-2018)
Laura Aguilar was an American-Chicana lesbian artist originally from the San Gabriel Valley whose work in the late 20th century challenged conceptions of beauty and lack of equity in contemporary photography. Her photographs centered mostly on portraits – both of herself, and individuals in the diverse communities of the Los Angeles area.
Aguilar would create several bodies of work throughout her life that set her among the greats of contemporary photography, with her legacy fostering a dialogue of recognition for previously underrepresented identities in the United States. In works like Clothed/Unclothed, and Plush Pony she unapologetically confronts the viewer with the lives and bodies of queer individuals, setting the table for herself, friends, and neighbors in the often-discriminatory realm of fine art at the time.
The most important series of Aguilar’s career came with a focus on nude self-portraiture in natural settings and introducing a radical vulnerability into the artist’s work. In the mid-1990s, her series Nature Self-Portraits presented the artist’s body in Southern California landscapes, questioning notions about beauty, the trope of female bodies as landscapes, and the absence of minority figures in art. Her series Stillness expanded these explorations in Texas desert landscapes, connecting her body to nature in in both physical and metaphysical ways and presenting herself as perfectly, beautifully, part of the natural world.