James Bidgood (1933 – 2022)

James Bidgood, the artist behind the film Pink Narcissus, passed away on 31st January 2022. Born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1933, Bidgood moved to New York City when he was 18. He spent years photographing and filming young men posing in the elaborate sets he built in his Hell’s Kitchen apartment. Bidgood spent his entire life in the same apartment, working as a dress designer, drag performer, and photographer.

The men he captures appear glamorous in a way that reflects the old Hollywood style that influenced his work. The use of mythological imagery and fantastical settings gives his work a dreamlike quality. The dreaminess shines through in Pink Narcissus, a film about a young man fantasizing about the men he desires. He captures the main character’s inner world in the same dramatic style that was applied to the work of straight filmmakers. As he told AnOther, “I wanted to photograph naked young men as opulently and as attentively as those professional ladies appearing in Playboy-type magazines were photographed.”

Though he published his photographs anonymously during his lifetime and had his name removed from Pink Narcissus, James Bidgood’s work was rediscovered in 1998 and published under his own name. His influence continues to live on through the artists he inspired, from Pierre et Gilles to David LaChapelle to Charli XCX.

A fundraiser has been set up to pay for burial costs.

Published: 2nd February 2022

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