Both artworks capture the excess of secret societies on the verge of destruction, though Dashiell’s takes a more sci-fi, tongue-in-cheek approach. Critics have compared it to Pompeii’s Villa of the Mysteries frieze that shows the initiation of a young woman into a mysterious cult. Its 28 separate panels depict a strange ritual initiation into an alien sexual cult. The grandson of famous crime writer Dashiell Hammett (author of The Maltese Falcon) was born in Japan and became best known for “Queer Mysteries,” his 8-by-192-foot Plexiglas panoramic mural. Of his own work, he has said that his paintings contain “everything I’ve ever painted: man alone, alive, dead, suffering, loving, both beautiful and terrible, and his relationship with other men, framed by desire or compassion and also my feelings: adoration of beauty and strength and when faced with fallen strength.” Many of his artworks contain biblical themes: wrestling angels, bodies contorted in ecstasy and men worshipping one another. Luis Caballero (1943 – 1995)Ī Colombian painter, Caballero’s works depict masculine figures in poses of violence and passion. The works of Basquiat are on view at contemporary art museums around the world, including The Broad in Los Angeles, Barcelona’s Museum of Contemporary Art, The Daros Collection in Zurich, Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, the Soho Contemporary Art gallery in NYC and Pittsburg’s Andy Warhol Museum. This graffiti sensibility wound itself into his later artworks which incorporated paint, text, images and mental map collages that questioned oppressive social structures through a hip-hop remix of words and symbols. The next year, he was spray painting messages around New York City’s Lower East Sideas as his artistic alter-ego SAMO (as in “same old shit”). Leyendecker, who we’ve mentioned before.īasquiat dropped out of school in 1975. In the interest of education, we’ve excluded some bigger name artists who have gotten plenty of press, a few of which we’ve listed above and others, like illustrator J.C. Some keep their sexual identities private rather than risk pigeonholing themselves as “a gay artist.” Other artists, like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg (who had a six-year relationship together), have been posthumously closeted by galleries - and even their own dealers - in hopes of attracting potential big buyers. Even in the supposedly liberal art world, homophobia still rears its ugly head.Īnd while many people consider artists like Michelangelo and Caravaggio to be gay, homosexuality didn’t exist as a distinct sexual identity during their lifetimes, making us hesitant to label them as such even though they both undoubtedly desired men. So we stuck with painters as a way to narrow our scope.īut even with that narrowed scope, it can be tough to identify gay painters and artists. The world of visual art is vast, featuring videographers, photographers, installation artists and sculptors. Slimming the list down to just 15 gay painters wasn’t easy.