Existing comment:
George Platt Lynes, 1907-1955
This intimate and quietly sensuous self-portrait was made in 1933, around the time that George Platt Lynes moved into a new studio in New York City. With printer and book publisher Monroe Wheeler and writer Glenway Wescott, whom he met when he was just twenty, Lynes had traveled back and forth to Europe for several years, experiencing the freedoms of Paris (where homosexuality was more widely accepted) and teaching himself photography. In 1932, a year before Lynes made this portrait, New York's Julien Levy Gallery had shown his photo- graphs alongside the work of Walker Evans. Lynes gained recognition as a photographer of well-known artists, writers, dancers, and Hollywood celebrities. He was employed as a fashion photog- rapher, but he is perhaps best known today for his dramatic and provocative photographs of male nudes, which were not exhibited during his lifetime.
Gelatin silver print, 1933 |