Local Leatherman Jeff Gent Homo History historian

Jeffrey Gent, based in Los Angeles, California, is the creator and curator of the popular website which is the largest database of vintage same-sex couple images available online.

Jeffrey Gent

Gent holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He specialized in latex costuming for 20 years; his work appeared in Vanity Fair, MTV videos, major motion pictures and exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

About a year before grandfather passed away, he handed me a cabinet card photo of a young man from the 1890s, telling me, “I finally realized who you look like, you are the spitting image of my Great Uncle Clarence. He was a confirmed bachelor his whole life, just like you.”

That photo made me wonder, if this bachelor uncle looked so much like me, was he also Gay?  The term “confirmed bachelor” was once a polite euphemism used to describe Gay men.  If Uncle Clarence was Gay, his family had looked the other way, never rejecting him but also never really accepting him either. From that moment forward, I developed a passion and curiosity for not only vintage photography, but also stories of an untold history of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) individuals that could be hidden behind the lens.

I started noticing vintage photos of male couples at antique shows and flea markets back in the ’80s. I collected them for years and years, but during one of my many moves they were packed away and forgotten. I rediscovered them in a box a few years ago; that’s what got me interested again. I began buying these same-sex couple photos again in earnest, my collecting limited only by my budget.

Since most of the men in these photos are unknown, it’s hard to know for sure if they were a Gay couple or just “good friends”.

The photos that are on display are from my private collection, which has never been exhibited.  My photos represent just a small fragment of our Gay and Lesbian history. Unfortunately, so many of these photos were purposely destroyed by horrified family members. For every photo that I may have mistakenly identified as Gay, thousands more were burned or torn into pieces to keep a family secret… I hope that by sharing these photos of vintage Gay couples, we can correct the social injustice that they endured by seeing them in a brand new light.

A curated portion of Jeff’s collection will be on view at TOM House during the 2015 Tom of Finland Art & Culture Festival.

Published: 10th September 2015

Categorised in: Events, Friends of Tom