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George Platt Lynes
George Platt Lynes
Born	April 15, 1907; East Orange, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	December 6, 1955 (aged 48); New York City, U.S.
Education	Berkshire School; Yale University
Known for	Photography

George Platt Lynes (April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955) was an American fashion and commercial photographer who worked in the 1930s and 1940s.^[1] He produced photographs featuring many gay artists and writers from the 1940s that were acquired by the Kinsey Institute.^[2]

Early life

Born in East Orange, New Jersey to Adelaide Sparkman and Joseph Russell Lynes (died 1932).^[1]^[3] His younger brother was Joseph Russell Lynes, Jr. (1910–1991). Lynes spent his childhood in New Jersey but attended the Berkshire School in Massachusetts, where he was a classmate of Lincoln Kirstein (1907–1996). He was sent to Paris in 1925 with the idea of better preparing him for college. His life was forever changed by the circle of friends that he would meet there including Gertrude Stein, Glenway Wescott, Monroe Wheeler. He attended Yale University in 1926, but dropped out a few months later to move to New York City.^[4]

Career

He returned to the United States with the idea of a literary career and he even opened a bookstore in Englewood, New Jersey in 1927. He first became interested in photography not with the idea of a career, but to take photographs of his friends and display them in his bookstore.

Returning to France the next year in the company of Wescott and Wheeler, he traveled around Europe for the next several years, always with his camera at hand. He developed close friendships within a larger circle of artists including Jean Cocteau and Julien Levy, an art dealer and critic. Levy would exhibit his photographs in his gallery in New York City in 1932 and Lynes would open his studio there that same year.

Commercial work

He was soon receiving commissions from Harper's Bazaar, Town & Country, and Vogue^[1] including a cover with perhaps the first supermodel, Lisa Fonssagrives. In 1935, he was asked to document the principal dancers and productions of Kirstein's and George Balanchine's newly founded American Ballet company (now the New York City Ballet).^[2]^[5]

Private collection

He was also most notably friends with Katherine Anne Porter,^[5] author of the novel Ship of Fools, whom he often enjoyed photographing wearing elaborate evening gowns and occasionally reenacting Shakespeare.^[6]

During his lifetime, Lynes amassed a substantial body of work involving nude and homoerotic photography. In the 1930s, he began taking nudes of friends, performers, and models, including a young Yul Brynner, although these remained private, unknown, and unpublished for years.^[2] Over the following two decades, Lynes continued his work in this area passionately, albeit privately.

In the late 1940s, Lynes became acquainted with Dr. Alfred Kinsey and his Institute in Bloomington, Indiana.^[7] Kinsey took an interest in Lynes's work, as he was researching homosexuality in America at the time.^[2] A large number of Lynes's nude and homoerotic works were sent to the Kinsey Institute before his death in 1955. The Kinsey collection represents one of the largest single collections of Lynes's work.^[7]

Personal life

For over ten years, Lynes had a love affair with both the curator Monroe Wheeler and the writer Glenway Wescott (1901–1987).^[8] He later got together with his studio assistant and, after he died in World War II, Lynes moved in with the younger brother of the assistant.^[8]

Los Angeles

Lynes was in Los Angeles from 1946-1948, living both before and after in New York City.^[9] He first visited to vacation and meet some friends he knew there including novelists Katherine Anne Porter and Christopher Isherwood, and a socialite he knew from Paris, Bernardine Szold Fritz [d].^[9] Upon arriving there he met painter Mai-Mai Sze, costume designers Irene Sharaff and costume designer Adrian (costume designer), and Adrian's wife Janet Gaynor.^[9] He also did portraits of the writers Thomas Mann and Aldous Huxley.^[9] After meeting all these people within a few weeks of his first visit, he decided to relocate from New York to L.A. to explore the arts scene in there.^[9] Lynes still had commissions for photography with Vogue through their art director Alexander Liberman^[9] After moving to LA, Lynes reconnected with socialite Denham Fouts, whom he had photographed in New York in the 30s and the two exchanged social networks.^[9]

Death

By May 1955, Lynes had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Before his death, he transferred many of his photographs and his negatives containing male nudes to the Kinsey Institute. "He clearly was concerned that this work, which he considered his greatest achievement as a photographer, should not be dispersed or destroyed...We have to remember the time period we're talking about—America during the post-war Red Scare..."^[7]

After a final trip to Europe, Lynes returned to New York City, where he died in 1955.

Legacy

Novels

Donald Windham's novel Tanaquil (1972) is a roman à clef about the life of Lynes.^[10]^[11]

Films

Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes [d] (2023) is a full-length documentary about Lynes.^[12]

Exhibitions

Solo

1932, Julian Levy Gallery, New York, NY
1940, Nelson Art Gallery, Kansas City, MO^[13]
1960, Portraits by George Platt Lynes, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
1980, Fleeting Gestures: Treasure of Dance Photography, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
1993, George Platt Lynes: A New Look, Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art, New York, NY
1993, George Platt Lynes: Photographs from the Kinsey Institute, Grey Art Gallery at New York University, New York, NY
1997 George Platt Lynes, Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art, New York, NY
2003, George Balanchine and his Dancers: the Ballet Photography of George Platt Lynes, The Kinsey Institute Gallery, Bloomington, IN
2005, Fashioning Celebrity: Photographs of George Platt Lynes, Harry Ransom Center, Austin, TX
2005, George Platt Lynes, Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art, New York, NY
2008, Vintage Ballet Photographs, Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2011, George Platt Lynes, Throckmorton Fine Art, New York, NY
2012, George Platt Lynes, Steven Kasher Gallery, New York, NY
2014, George Platt Lynes, Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art, Lambertville, NJ
2019, Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes, Newfields, Indianapolis, IN^[14]

Group

1932, Murals by American Painters and Photographers, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY^[15]
1937, Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
1951, Abstraction in Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
1977, documenta 6, Documenta, Kassel, Germany
1992, Figure/Form: The Nude in 20th Century Photography, Jan Kesner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1992, Classic Dualities: The Photographs of Len Prince taken at the Tampa Museum of Art, Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
1999, Figurescapes, Radiant Light Gallery, Portland, ME
2001, Interwoven Lives: George Platt Lynes and his Friends, DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY
2002, Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2003, Flesh Tones – 100 Years of the Nude, Robert Mann Gallery, New York, NY
2003, Artseal Gallery Photo SF Preview, Artseal Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2003, Herb Ritts Private Collection, Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2003, Boys of Summer, ClampArt, New York, NY
2005, Summer Skin, Stephen Cohen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2005, From the Source, Fashion Photographs, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2005, Beyond Real Part 1 Dressing Up, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, Australia
2005, 20th Anniversary Show, Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art, New York, NY
2006, American Icons, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2006, Busy going crazy: The Sylvio Perlstein Collection, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France
2007, Igor Strawinsky – ich muss die Kunst anfassen, Museum der Moderne Rupertinum, Salzburg, Austria
2007, VIP, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
2007, Classic Beauty: Part 2 Photographs of the Male Nude, Throckmorton Fine Art, New York, NY
2007, MODE: BILDER, NRW Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft, Düsseldorf, Germany
2008, Vintage / Vantage, Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art, New York, NY
2008, Pre-Revolutionary Queer: Gay Art and Culture Before Stonewall, The Kinsey Institute, Bloomington, IN
2010, Flirting with Bling, Corkin Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2010, Nature & Nurture: Exploring Human Reproduction from Pregnancy through Early Childhood, The Kinsey Institute, Bloomington, IN
2010, Staff Picks 2010, Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY
2010, 25 Years / 25 Works, Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art, Washington, D.C.
2011, Narcissus Reflected, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
2011, An Intimate Circle, DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY
2011, Psyche & Muse: Creative Entanglements with the Science of the Soul, Beinecke Library at Yale University, New Haven, CT
2013, Fashion: Photography from the Condé Nast Archives, Fondazione Forma per la Fotografia, Milan, Italy

2019, Sex Crimes, ClampArt, New York, NY

Collections

Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, National Gallery of Canada
Cape Breton University Art Gallery permanent collection in Nova Scotia.^[16]
Centre Pompidou Musée National d́Art Moderne, Paris
Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg
The Secret Museum, Montreal
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Los Angeles County Museum of Art – LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL
Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY^[17]
National Portrait Gallery, London^[18]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "GEORGE PLATT LYNES". The New York Times. December 7, 1955. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Review/Photography; Another Side of a Life's Work, Elegantly Revealed". The New York Times. September 24, 1993. Archived from the original on April 22, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ "DR. J. R. LYNES DIES: QUIT BAR FOR CHURGH". The New York Times. December 3, 1932. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ "GEORGE PLATT LYNES". robertmillergallery.com. Robert Miller Gallery. Archived from the original on September 19, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ ^a ^b Johnson, Ken (October 12, 2001). "ART IN REVIEW; 'Interwoven Lives' -- 'George Platt Lynes and His Friends'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 28, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ Titus, Mary (2005). The Ambivalent Art of Katherine Anne Porter. Atlanta, London: University of Georgia. pp. 155, 168–77, 187. ISBN 978-0-8203-2756-3.
^ ^a ^b ^c George Platt Lynes, The Male Nudes: Rizzoli International Pub, 2011 ISBN 978-0-8478-3374-0, Afterward, Ellenzweig, Allen
^ ^a ^b Limnander, Armand (March 5, 2009). "Landed Gent". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 9, 2018. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Leddick 2000, pp. 203–209.
^ Leddick 2000, p. 296.
^ "Donald Windham". Obituaries. telegraph.co.uk. July 16, 2010. Archived from the original on July 19, 2010.
^ Borchert, Gavin (April 26, 2023). "Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes". SIFF. Archived from the original on May 29, 2023. Retrieved June 17, 2023.
^ H. C. H. (September 20, 1940). "British Art Goes on Parade To Open the Fall Loan Shows". The Kansas City Star. p. 34.
^ "Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes". Newfields. February 24, 2019. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
^ "Murals and Photo-Murals at Museum of Modern Art's New Home". The Springfield Daily Republican. May 1, 1932. p. 6E.
^ "Artists in the Cape Breton University Art Gallery Permanent Collection" (PDF). cbu.ca. Cape Breton University. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ Vogel, Carol (November 20, 1998). "INSIDE ART; The Modern Seeks Money". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 28, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
^ "George Platt Lynes". National Portrait Gallery, London. Archived from the original on June 15, 2020. Retrieved June 15, 2020.

Sources

Crump, James; Lynes, George Platt (1993). George Platt Lynes: Photographs from the Kinsey Institute. Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-8212-1996-6. OCLC 1391529672 – via Internet Archive.
Leddick, David (2000) [1999]. Intimate Companions: a Triography of George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, Lincoln Kirstein, and Their Circle. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-250-10478-6. OCLC 1035670535.
Leddick, David (2000). George Platt Lynes, 1907-1955. Foreword by Pohorilenko Anatole. Köln: Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-6403-6. OCLC 44604743.
Lynes, George Platt (2011). George Platt Lynes: The Male Nudes. New York: Rizzoli International Publications. ISBN 978-0-8478-3374-0.
Pohorilenko, Anatole; Crump, James (1998). When We Were Three: The travel albums of George Platt Lynes, Monroe Wheeler, and Glenway Wescott, 1925-1935. Santa Fe, NM; New York, NY: Arena Editions ; Distribution by D.A.P. ISBN 978-0-9657280-4-1. OCLC 607168707 – via Internet Archive.
Woody, Jack (1994). Portrait: The Photographs of George Platt Lynes, 1927–1955. Santa Fe: Twin Palms Publishers.