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Art & Artists Online Gallery: George Quaintance
21st May 2021, 3:55 pm
GEORGE QUAINTANCE Jay Peter Dowd, 1940, Oil on canvas, 65″ x 42″. Tom of Finland Foundation Permanent Collection. Donated by Bob Mainardi & Trent Dunphy. Framing donation by The Los Angeles Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
As part of our commitment to protect, preserve and promote the erotic arts for three and a half decades, Tom of Finland Foundation is making online galleries of our erotic art collection available to the public. Patrons of The World of TOM Patreon receive the first look. This week, we are featuring American erotic artist George Quaintance.
George Quaintance (3rd June 1902 – 8th November 1957) is famous for his “idealized, strongly homoerotic” depictions of men in mid-20th-century physique magazines. Using historical settings to justify the nudity or distance the subjects from modern society, his art featured idealized muscular, semi-nude or nude male figures.
One of the most invaluable resources for Taschen’s Quaintance was Tom of Finland Foundation, which held a large number of oils by the artist. The Foundation’s president, Durk Dehner, tracked down the last residence of Quaintance’s partner, Victor Garcia, and found Quaintance’s lifelong scrapbooks in a carport in Hollywood.
George Quaintance
“Tom was stunned, especially by the Physique Pictorial with a Quaintance painting as its cover. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes! How could someone paint pictures of handsome males so naturalistically! I wanted to learn to do something like that!'” –Tom of Finland: The Official Life and Work of a Gay Hero, 2020
It’s our history | 1997 | Richard Hawkins on the first Gay celebrity
Richard Hawkins wrote the following piece in Tom of Finland Foundation’s 1997 Spring Dispatch. Richard Hawkins, a contemporary artist with a special affinity for the physique artists and photographers of the ’50s and ’60s, is creating a website and eventually a book on the life and work of George Quaintance. Right from the cover… View Article
“The Flamboyant Life and Forbidden Art of George Quaintance” | 3rd July | LA
_________________________________________________________ When it comes to mid-century homoeroticism, one name comes to mind—Tom of Finland. His overtly homoerotic art defined a pre-Stonewall era, when overt gay art was not only not in vogue but flat-out illegal. Yet Finland and his contemporaries—Harry Bush and Etienne, among others—had a forerunner. George Quaintance, the 1940s and ’50s illustrator whose… View Article
George Quaintance Joins Tom of Finland and Bob Mizer in Sexy New Exhibition
The mid-century’s most popular physique painter will have his work on display beginning 2nd July. When it comes to mid-century homoeroticism, one name comes to mind—Tom of Finland. His overtly homoerotic art defined a pre-Stonewall era, when overt gay art was not only not in vogue but flat-out illegal. Yet Finland and his contemporaries—Harry Bush and… View Article
“TOM OF FINLAND: The Official Life and Work of a Gay Hero” releases
Avant-garde, provocative, subversive and rebellious – Tom of Finland stamped history with his recognizable artistic style. A virtuoso of drawing, he fashioned the silhouette of a new Gay man – strong, confident, joyful and assertive – fully participating in the visibility and recognition of the nascent Homosexual movement. With text authorized by the artist… View Article
Published: 21st May 2021
Tags: Art & Artists Gallery, George QuaintanceCategorised in: History, ONLINE, Patreon