{gay} – Page 151 – { feuilleton }

Edmund Teske

Kenneth Anger, Topanga Canyon, California, Composite (1954).

This portrait of a dashing Kenneth Anger juxtaposes the filmmaker with an engraving by Gustave Doré for Paradise Lost. Like his contemporary Emil Cadoo, photographer Edmund Teske (1911–1996) often concealed the homoerotic nature of his pictures by rendering them “artistic” through double-exposure. Teske was friends with rock group The Doors, and a number of his studies of Jim Morrison and co. are very familiar from histories of the band.

Via Bajo el Signo de Libra.

Nude, Davenport, Iowa, Composite with Leaves (1941/46).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Emil Cadoo
• The art of Robert Flynt

Wildeana

The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1907).

I finished reading Neil McKenna’s excellent biography recently, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, a book which makes an ideal companion to Richard Ellmann’s 1987 life of Wilde. Whilst reading about the two trials I remembered that among five pages of digitised Wilde volumes at the Internet Archive there’s a 1906 book, The Trial of Oscar Wilde: From the Shorthand Reports whose contents are what you’d expect from the title. Browsing through the other files there revealed further items of note such as this edition of The Ballad of Reading Gaol published a year later and illustrated throughout by J Latimer Wilson. The page layout of text plus a narrow picture is uncommon, and from the date of publication it’s interesting to see that despite Wilde’s shattered reputation there was still money to be made printing his books.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1907).

Among the other volumes are two finely illustrated editions of his short stories. The edition of A House of Pomegranates below comes with drawings by Ben Kutcher, an artist about whom I know nothing other than his style is very similar to that of the great Harry Clarke. The introduction is a surprise, a serious appraisal of Wilde’s life by HL Mencken who admired the way the author stood against the prevailing morality of the day. There’s also an edition of The Happy Prince and Other Tales from 1920 illustrated by Charles Robinson.

The House of Pomegranates (1918).

These books are mainly of note for their decoration, however. Of more interest to Wilde enthusiasts is a first edition of Robert Hichens’ The Green Carnation from 1894. Hichens was a friend of Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas and, according to McKenna’s book, a fellow Uranian (ie: gay) who knew the pair well enough to be able to pen a scandalous roman à clef based on their relationship, helping to confirm for public opinion much that was suspected about Wilde’s outrageous lifestyle. Both Wilde and Douglas disowned Hichens and repudiated the novel but, coming a year before the Queensbury libel trial, it did neither of them any favours. Those curious to read the exploits of “Esmé Amarinth” and “Lord Reginald Hastings” may download a copy here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Oscar Wilde archive
• The book covers archive
• The illustrators archive

Luke Smalley memorial exhibition

Megaphone from Gymnasium.

I wasn’t aware that photographer Luke Smalley had died prematurely this year until a brief post I’d made about his work started getting hits from an obituary piece at the NYT. Bill O’Connor of Wessel + O’Connor emailed this weekend with news of a showing of Smalley’s final photo series, Sunday Drive, at Clampart, NYC. As with earlier series such as Gymnasium (2000), there’s also a monograph available from Twin Palms Publishers.

Luke Smalley: Sunday Drive—A Memorial Exhibition runs until December 19, 2009.

Medicine Ball from Gymnasium.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Luke Smalley

Butch Sales

We haven’t had any proper eye candy here for a while so let’s correct that with some Brazilian beauty in the shape of model Arthur Sales, from a shoot for Butch Swim. Photo by Cristiano Madureira. Via VGL where you can see a lot more pics.

Salomé scored

Alla Nazimova as Salomé (1923).

I wrote a while ago about Alla Nazimova’s luscious silent film production of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, a suitably Decadent affair with an allegedly all-gay cast, and costume and stage design based on Aubrey Beardsley’s celebrated illustrations. The film is currently touring England and Wales with a new score for four musicians by composer Charlie Barber, an extract of which can be heard here. I like the Middle Eastern sound of this, a shame the film isn’t coming to Manchester.

By coincidence, artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins sent these photos of an impressive Duncan Meadows and his equally impressive sword as additions to the burgeoning Men with swords archive. Meadows is shown as the executioner in a Royal Opera House production of the Strauss opera, appearing at the end of the drama bearing the head of John the Baptist. Given the way that Salomé’s body has always been the focus of attention in this story, Meadows’ appearance makes a striking change, one which Wilde himself might have appreciated.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The men with swords archive
• The Salomé archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Equus and the Executionist