{eye candy} – Page 5 – { feuilleton }

Fred Holland Day revisited

St Sebastian with wounded chest (c. 1906).

The work of American photographer Fred Holland Day (1864–1933) has featured here in the past but it’s only recently that I came across the archive of prints at the Library of Congress. Not all the works there are digitised yet, and some are still unavailable for viewing, but the LoC prints one can view are always quality scans. Day would have been a significant photographer whatever his subject but his work has additional interest today for its overt homoerotic dimension; he manages to play the usual evasive games with Biblical themes or Classical mythology whilst maintaining a pictorial quality through soft focus and heavily-grained paper. The mood of some of these shots makes them seem far in advance of other work of the period.

St Sebastian in loincloth, tied to tree with rope, arrows in stomach and side, hands behind back (1906).

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More Queer Noise

Hand In Glove (1973) by The Smiths, 7″ single.

This celebrated pair of buttocks turned up in the inbox this week, courtesy of a news mail from the Manchester District Music Archive announcing their Queer Noise website, an online exhibition exploring LGBT music and club culture in Greater Manchester. It was just over a year ago that I designed a poster for the Queer Noise music event which preceded the online collection; writer and journalist Jon Savage was the host that evening and he’s provided an intro for the site. And speaking of queer noises, I’ve been told recently that John Gill’s 1995 book of that name, Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Music is shortly to be republished in an updated edition. No further details as yet.

Meanwhile, back at the buttocks, it seems that Morrissey swiped his cover photo for the first Smiths single from The Nude Male (1978) by Margaret Walters. I have that very book so here is that very photo, an impressive study by beefcake photographer Jim French.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Queer Noise in Manchester
• Queer Noise and the Wolf Girl
• The fascinating phallus
• Queer Noises

Shrouded

It’s been mostly graphic aesthetics of one sort or another recently so here’s some bodily aesthetics via the always reliable Homotography. Shrouded is an exhibition by Australian photographer Brenton Parry which runs at the Pine Street Gallery, Chippendale, Sydney, until February 13th. Homotography has further pictures. Another recent post there was a set of nude dancers which photographer Yang Wang calls The Naked Dance. And while we’re on the subject of masculine pulchritude, EVB’s latest Boy of the Week was one of the best yet. How beauteous mankind is!

Gervase and Patrick

Gervase (left) & Patrick Procktor (right).

Once upon a time in the 1960s: painter Patrick Procktor and friend photographed by Cecil Beaton at Beaton’s home; no wonder David Hockney used to come and visit. Procktor made Gervase Griffiths the subject of his work on more than one occasion, see here and here. Thanks to Little Augury for the picture details.

Update: For more about Procktor, see Patrick Procktor: Art and Life (2010) by Ian Massey.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Further back and faster

Darq Dreamz

Fey Saturn.

Arriving as a welcome palliative for the sudden seasonal gloom, Mikel Marton’s autumn photo series is an exploration of homoerotic paganism and occult tableaux he calls Darq Dreamz. “Photography is the medium that allows me to be a medium,” he says. “Some of the photos added to the collection are from a series about a dying breed of incestuous modern witch boys forced to practice their rituals in an over populated decaying city, devoid of nature and solitude.” The witch boys and contrary spirits await you here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Hector de Gregorio
• Richard de Chazal’s Zodiac
• The Major Arcana by Jak Flash
• Ode to the Classics
• In the Shadow of the Sun by Derek Jarman
• Mikel Marton
• Tiger Lily
• Toxicboy