Abstract :
Hidden Histories: 20th century male same sex
lovers in the visual arts
An exhibition and book by Michael Petry
The New Art Gallery Walsall: May – July 2004
Artmedia Press, London, May 2004
Hidden Histories was the first international historical
survey of its kind to examine the lives and work
of male artists in the 20th century who were same
sex lovers. It comprised a curatorial project within
The University of Wolverhampton, an exhibition at
The New Art Gallery Walsall and a publication by
Artmedia Press. This text looks at issues that arose
in the production of the project which included a
change of name from Mad About the Boy, ethical
concerns, and censorship by the local council.
Hidden Histories did not contend there was a
queer, gay or same sex aesthetic connecting the
work of the surveyed artists. It did not ‘out’ anyone
– all the information presented existed in the public
domain. Hidden Histories documented how male
artists’ work was affected by evolving attitudes to
homosexuality. Its thesis (the arch of openness)
describes how public attitudes changed throughout
the 20th Century; from prohibition in the late
Victorian Period, to begrudging tolerance in the
inter-wars years; from relative openness post
WWI, to outright homophobia during the Cold
War; and from decriminalisation in the West
(following the Stonewall Riots), to stigma in the
AIDS era. Hidden Histories was premised on the
inter-dependence of same sex and dominant
cultures, and demonstrates that irrespective of
legal or societal prohibitions, same sex lovers
continued to make a rich and varied contribution to
artistic dialogue.
