Commie Pinko Fag

Paul Robeson Photos: Nickolas Murray Robeson spoke out against...

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:20:42 -0700

Paul Robeson

Photos: Nickolas Murray

Robeson spoke out against racism, facism, and became an international activist fighting for the labor movement, trade unions, Welsh coal miners, the Spanish Civil War, and the civil rights of Africans everywhere.

Robeson became the first African American celebrity to pose nude.

The well-known Italian-American sculptor Antonio Salemme invited the actor to pose for him after seeing Robeson perform in “The Emperor Jones.” More than an actor, he saw an awesome body “beautifully formed and glistening with sweat.” He approached Paul Robeson backstage and told him he wanted to sculpt a life-size, seven foot tall nude statue of him. Paul eyed him and they both grinned like adolescent schoolboys.

He went home with Salemme and posed for the first time that very night. It was his first time among the radicals, the avant-garde, the renegades, anarchists and libertarians.… Paul would pose after performances sometimes up to three hours. Antonio Salemme called it “the highest achievment of my art.”

… In 1930, when it was finally going to be seen publically in Philadelphia, all hell broke loose. It was recrated and returned to Salemme after they saw there was no figleaf to cover what couldn’t be covered, and race and politics blocked the inclusion of the statue in the exhibit.

Paul Robeson | April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976 activist,...

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:40:29 -0700

Paul Robeson | April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976

activist, academic, actor, athlete, singer, commie pinko fag

Artwork of Prentiss Taylor The Bridge, Sunday, 1952, lithograph...

Thu, 23 May 2013 14:53:42 -0700

The Bridge, Sunday

Assembly Church

Experience Meeting, Macedonia A.M.E.

Artwork of Prentiss Taylor

The Bridge, Sunday, 1952, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum [above]

Assembly Church, 1936, lithograph on paper, Library of Congress [center]

Experience Meeting, Macedonia A.M.E., 1934, lithograph on paper, Gibbes Museum of Art [below]

Prentiss Taylor

Thu, 23 May 2013 12:20:33 -0700

Prentiss Taylor

Prentiss Taylor, illustrator/painter/lithographer [1907 –...

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:40:31 -0700

Prentiss Taylor, illustrator/painter/lithographer

[1907 – October 7, 1991]

Taylor depicted mostly realistic and narrative scenes of subjects and themes that reflected his personal interests in music, architecture, religion and social justice.

During his time in New York, Taylor developed close friendships with poet Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten. He collaborated with Hughes in the formation of the Golden Stair Press to produce publications reflecting the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance.

James Leslie Daniels, 1937 Photo: George Platt Lynes

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:20:24 -0700

James Leslie Daniels, 1937

Photo: George Platt Lynes

queerliness: Jimmie Daniels, Donald Angus, Prentiss Taylor and...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:41:36 -0700

queerliness:

Jimmie Daniels, Donald Angus, Prentiss Taylor and Tonio Selwest, March 1932

Kenneth Macpherson & Jimmie Daniels pose with Richmond...

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:20:38 -0700

Kenneth Macpherson & Jimmie Daniels pose with Richmond Barthe’s unfinished carving of Daniels, 1938. [top]

Barthé said he chose Daniels as his subject because of his dazzling smile, but it was actually Scottish filmmaker Kenneth Macpherson’s wealthy wife, Winifred Ellerman (whom Americans knew as the poet, Bryher) who commissioned the bust. Kenneth Macpherson was Jimmie Daniels’ lover. Ellerman was a lesbian. The marriage was one of convenience. Ellerman heavily supported her husband, who in turn heavily supported Jimmie, thus affording him a high-class life in a Greenwich Village apartment for several years. In an impressive effort, they all conspired to help the black, gay and handsome Barthé, who was quite down on his luck at the time and needed the work and cash.

Daniels and Macpherson out on the town in Harlem with their friend, Lloyd Thomas (actress Edna Thomas’ husband). [below]

Jimmie Daniels & once lover architect Phillip Johnson

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:40:26 -0700

Jimmie Daniels & once lover architect Phillip Johnson

deviatesinc: Jimmie Daniels, 1940 Photo: Carl Van Vechten

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:20:23 -0700

deviatesinc:

Jimmie Daniels, 1940
Photo: Carl Van Vechten

Jimmie Daniels, 1940 Photo: Carl Van Vechten

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:40:16 -0700

Jimmie Daniels, 1940

Photo: Carl Van Vechten

Artwork of James Richmond Barthé

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:20:40 -0700

Artwork of James Richmond Barthé

The Boxer, James Richmond Barthé, 1942, Bronze, 47.6 x 30.9 x...

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:40:22 -0700

The Boxer, James Richmond Barthé, 1942, Bronze, 47.6 x 30.9 x 17.6 cm

James Richmond Barthé Barthé was unique among African-American...

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:20:31 -0700

James Richmond Barthé

Barthé was unique among African-American artists during the Harlem Renaissance in that he was the only one to exploit fully the black male nude for its political, racial, aesthetic, and erotic significance, as in Feral Benga and Stevedore. His homoeroticism is expressed in both Western mythological themes and in notions of the Africanized primitive.

Although Barthé remained closeted all his life, he entered an established network of gay men and women soon after his arrival in Harlem in 1929. His penchant for homoerotic themes was encouraged by his friends in New York’s gay and artistic communities, which stretched across barriers of race, gender, and class.

James Richmond Barthé, sculptor [January 28, 1901 – March 5,...

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:41:00 -0700

James Richmond Barthé. photo: Carl van Vechten

James Richmond Barthé in the studio

James Richmond Barthé, sculptor

[January 28, 1901 – March 5, 1989]

Barthé’s life and art were devoted to resolving internal conflicts resulting from the political pressures he felt as a black artist in New York, as a deeply spiritual person, and as a homosexual. His sculptures became the means through which he attempted to work out and work through these conflicts.

His work expresses a range of emotions and experiences, from lynching as a social reality for blacks to the ephemerality and eroticism of dance.

Artistically, Barthé preferred traditional styles and methods. He was particularly inspired by Western classical notions of beauty and Michelangelo’s idealization of the male nude. He coupled this interest with Rodinesque expressive compositions and a fascination with primitivism.

Looking For Langston Trailer | Isaac Julien Looking for...

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:20:23 -0700

Looking For Langston Trailer | Isaac Julien

Looking for Langston is a 1989 British black-and-white film directed by Isaac Julien. It combines authentic archival newsreel footage of Harlem in the 1920s with scripted scenes to produce a non-linear impressionistic story line celebrating black gay identity and desire during the artistic and cultural period known as the Harlem Renaissance in New York. The film is a short, running about 42 minutes.

Photo

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:40:25 -0700

Trumpet Player | Langston Hughes The NegroWith the trumpet at...

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:45:18 -0700

Trumpet Player | Langston Hughes

The Negro
With the trumpet at his lips
Has dark moons of weariness
Beneath his eyes
where the smoldering memory
of slave ships
Blazed to the crack of whips
about thighs

The negro
with the trumpet at his lips
has a head of vibrant hair
tamed down,
patent-leathered now
until it gleams
like jet—
were jet a crown

the music
from the trumpet at his lips
is honey
mixed with liquid fire
the rhythm
from the trumpet at his lips
is ecstasy
distilled from old desire—

Desire
that is longing for the moon
where the moonlight’s but a spotlight
in his eyes,
desire
that is longing for the sea
where the sea’s a bar-glass
sucker size

The Negro
with the trumpet at his lips
whose jacket
Has a fine one-button roll,
does not know
upon what riff the music slips

It’s hypodermic needle
to his soul
but softly
as the tune comes from his throat
trouble
mellows to a golden note

Langston Hughes, writer/activist[February 1, 1902 – May 22,...

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:30:32 -0700

Langston Hughes, writer/activist
[February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967]

Academics and biographers today believe that Hughes was homosexual and included homosexual codes in many of his poems, similar in manner to Walt Whitman. Hughes has cited him as an influence on his poetry. Hughes’s story “Blessed Assurance” deals with a father’s anger over his son’s effeminacy and “queerness”. The biographer Aldrich argues that, in order to retain the respect and support of black churches and organizations and avoid exacerbating his precarious financial situation, Hughes remained closeted.

Countee Cullen, author[May 30, 1903 – January 9, 1946]

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:15:33 -0700

Countee Cullen, author
[May 30, 1903 – January 9, 1946]