The WOW Report

  • WOW Report
  • About
  • RuPaul’s Drag Race Live!
  • WOW Presents Plus
  • What to Watch
  • Store
You are here: Home / Culture / Art / #ArtDept: Charles Demuth’s “Turkish Bath” & “Distinguished Air”

#ArtDept: Charles Demuth’s “Turkish Bath” & “Distinguished Air”

By Stephen Rutledge on June 11, 2017 7:54 am

Turkish Baths (1915) and Distinguished Air (1930)

Charles Demuth (1883-1935)

Denmuth was one of the first American artists to expose his sexual identity through honest, positive expressions of gay desire. He was a major figure in the American Modernist Movement and he was a pioneer of the Precisionist Style, the American version of Cubism during the 1920s.

A member of a wealthy family, Demuth had the financial freedom to pursue his art without having to worry about public opinion concerning his aesthetics or sexuality.

He began painting when he was sickly child with an illness that left him unable to walk. He studied at The Pennsylvania Academy Of Fine Arts, where gay artist Thomas Eakins had been on the faculty. Eakins was also a painter of major homoerotic works.

When he was 29-years-old, Demuth began an affair with Robert Locher. After spending two years in Paris, the two men moved to NYC, settling into the bohemian lifestyle of Greenwich Village. They spent summers in Provincetown, hanging out with the leftist writers and artists who celebrated sexual freedom.

Denmuth was an elegant, witty, frivolous, shy, kind, gentle, amusing dandy of a man. He had the typical esthete’s love of good clothes, excellent food and drink and smart company. Demuth was friends with noted gay figures of the era: writers Edith Sitwell and Djuna Barnes, and photographer and critic Carl Van Vechten.

His series of Bathhouse paintings were inspired by his love of The Lafayette Baths. They showed men’s mostly nude bodies suggestively arranged together.

One of his most fabulous paintings, Distinguished Air, shows a scene at an art exhibition opening where a male couple admires Constantin Brancusi’s (1876-1957) notorious sculpture, Princess X, as another, possibly straight, male art lover checks out the ass of one of the gay guys. Brancusi always denied that his sculpture was a phallus; he claimed that it was of a woman head’s head atop a very long neck. Somehow, that’s not what I see.

 

Many galleries refused to show Distinguished Air, and Demuth responded by painting even more provocative watercolors, including a series of half-naked sailors fondling themselves. These paintings showed a real boldness and self-assurance that other gay artists didn’t dare. But, those works didn’t become well-known until a half a century after his passing.

Demuth left this world in 1935, taken by diabetes at just 59-years-old. He left all his papers, watercolors and sketches to Locher, but he left his other paintings his pal, artist Georgia O’Keeffe. There is a museum located in his former house and studio in his hometown of Lancaster, PA.

Show the love:

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr

Filed Under: Art, Culture, Gay, History, LBGTQ

More

ABBA! Nick Offerman! Murray Bartlett! David Bowie! The WOW Report for Radio Andy!

ABBA! Nick Offerman! Murray Bartlett! David Bowie! The WOW Report for Radio Andy!

by Blake Jacobs on February 3, 2023 11:00 am

Adam Joseph Reimagines Loosey LaDuca’s Talent Show Track “Let Loose”- Listen

Adam Joseph Reimagines Loosey LaDuca’s Talent Show Track “Let Loose”- Listen

by Paisley Dalton on January 31, 2023 9:28 am

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Trending


#TikTokTrend: Madonna Dancing to Gaga’s ‘Bloody Mary’ Has Fans Kinda Freaking TF Out –Watch

Robert Fux, Farao Groth & Kayo Are Sashaying to the ‘Drag Race Sverige’ Judging Panel

Monét X Change & Bob the Drag Queen Launch New Line, BOMO Beauty

The LOOK George Santos Gives After Being Asked “Who Do You Think Will Win Drag Race..?” –Watch

#Grammys23: Watch Sam Smith, Kim Petras, Violet Chachki & Gotmik Slay with ‘Unholy’ Style

About

From the creators of The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Party Monster, Million Dollar Listing, RuPaul's Drag Race, I Am Britney Jean, Big Freedia, and more.

Schiaperrelli! Madonna! Tom Hanks! Kylies Minogue & Jenner! The WOW Report for Radio Andy
Madonna! Joanna Lumley! Edgar Allan Poe! Jennifers Lopez AND Coolidge! The WOW Report for Radio Andy!
Prince Harry! Jennifer Coolidge! M3GAN! Jordan Peele! Randy Joins Us for the WOW Report for Radio Andy!
Rest in Perfection Barbara Walters and Anita Pointer! The WOW Report for Radio Andy!
ONJ! QE2! Leslie Jordan! Our In Memoriam Episode for 2002 on The WOW Report for Radio Andy

© 2021 World of Wonder Productions, Inc | World of Wonder is a trademark of World of Wonder Productions, Inc | Privacy

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in