Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York

The Museum of the City of New York’s exhibit "Gay Gotham" peels back the layers of New York City’s LGBT life that thrived even in the shadows to reveal an often-hidden side of the city’s history and underscore the power of artistic collaboration to transcend oppression.

The exhibit features 225 works from a mix of iconic and lesser-known LGBT artists, whose work will be presented chronologically to reveal the trajectory of queer life in 20th-century New York: composer Leonard Bernstein; playwright, poet. and novelist Mercedes de Acosta; activist Harmony Hammond; dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones; arts impresario Lincoln Kirstein; artist Greer Lankton; photographer George Platt Lynes; artist and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe; artist and author Richard Bruce Nugent; and artist Andy Warhol. Each of these individuals will be examined within the overlapping networks of numerous fellow artists and colleagues who advanced their professional careers, sustained their social lives, and propelled them into the city and nation’s cultural mainstream.

Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York
The Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10029
October 7 to February 26

Photo above: Collection of Philip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons, New York

Courtesy LGBT Community Center National History Archive

Courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Gift of Mercedes de Acosta in honor of Ala Story

Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Carl Van Vechten, 42.316.231. Used with permission of The Van Vechten Trust

©The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s

Photo © Chantal Regnault

Courtesy of the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY

Courtesy Liza Cowan and Penny House

Courtesy Eva Weiss

Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Carl Van Vechten, 63.4.9. Used with permission of The Van Vechten Trust

© James Bidgood, Courtesy ClampArt, New York City

Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Carrie Goteiner and Miriam Montaug Ashkenaz in memory of Haoui Montaug, X2016.202.3

Courtesy New York Magazine

Courtesy Paul Monroe for Greer Lankton Archives Museum

Gran Fury, Courtesy The New York Public Library Manuscripts and Archives Division