Vintage gay pics

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What are we looking for in the faces of these people who dared to challenge the mores of their time to seek solace together? “All social classes and ages are represented, from workers to businessmen, including students, soldiers and sailors.”

Many of the photographs were in near-perfect condition when Nini and Treadwell found them, which suggests they were safely hidden away somewhere over the decades.

His words, not ours…

Walter Kundzicz’s Photographic Style

One thing that set Kundzicz apart from other photographers of the time, was that he didn’t pretend to see his models only as beautiful photographic subjects. The identities of the photographers and subjects connected to most of the images are a mystery.

“The pictures adopt the same staging as for heterosexual couples: couples pose at the bow of a ship, on the branch of a tree, at the beach, in the forest and in bed, and they sometimes also simulate a wedding stance,” per a statement from the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire.

Loving is available in five languages: French, English, Italian, German and Spanish.

Nini and Treadwell hope that the new exhibition—and shows like it in the future—will continue to spread the message that “love is love,” as Treadwell tells the Art Newspaper’s Karen Chernick.

“Love has been around forever,” he adds.

“Loving” is on view at the Musée Rath in Geneva, Switzerland, through September 24.

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100 Years of Photographs of Gay Men in Love

Books

Hundreds of photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries offer a glimpse at the life of gay men during a time when their love was illegal almost everywhere.

A beautiful group of photographs that spans a century (1850–1950) is part of a new book that offers a visual glimpse of what life may have been like for those men, who went against the law to find love in one another’s arms.

“They couldn’t do it when they were alive, but they can do it now, and I think that’s really powerful.”

Nini and Treadwell, who have been together for more than 30 years, stumbled upon the first photograph in their collection at an antique shop in Dallas, Texas. While some of the images were taken in photo booths, many others were likely taken by a third party.

Taken in 1927, the snapshot showed two men embracing. While much about Jim Stryker remains unknown, his blonde beauty against the liberated setting of Fire Island remains a snapshot in time of a refuge for young gay boys of the time. 

Jim Stryker At The Beach (Fire Island) - 1961

See Photos of Gay Men in Love Dating Back to the 1850s

LGBTQ+ Pride

A Smithsonian magazine special report

A new exhibition features romantic snapshots found at flea markets, antique shops and online auctions

In a series of photographs, men from around the world kiss, hug, picnic and gaze into each others’ eyes.

Upon arrival, he was greeted with the breathtaking sight of a fully naked 18-year-old in a tree, laughing uproariously as he urinated on a friend standing below.

Jim and Champ hit it off at once and the photographer proceeded with the first of 21 separate photo sessions with the boy. When we see them as connected, we feel more whole, and that’s what love is about for many of us anyway.

The book, Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love 1850s-1950s (5 Continents Editions), is available online.

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Champion) in the summer of 1952.

He displayed them clearly as sex objects and sometimes even engaged in romantic and sexual relationships with them.

Kundzicz’s first catalog was dedicated only to Jim Stryker, who turned out to be his best-selling model for over seven years. These works were captured on Fire Island and remain some of the most searched to this day.

Kundzicz’s Impact On 1960s Gay Culture

The 1960s were a time of great change.

Flipping through the book, it wasn’t that I felt that I learned a great deal about being LGBTQ, but what gave me comfort was the feeling that we’re not going anywhere. In Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love 1850s–1950s, hundreds of images tell the story of love and affection between men, with some clearly in love and others hinting at more than just friendship.

In a time where sexuality was repressed in the mainstream, Fire Island came to represent a place of mystery and a gay haven for many. With time, however, they found plenty—far more than they needed to fill a book.

Following the photography book’s publication in 2020, the images resonated with readers all over the world.

In one, two men hold up a sign that says “Not married but willing to be.” In another, a shirtless man gives another man a piggyback ride.

1960’s Beefcake comes to Fire Island: Jim Stryker

When you think about gay culture in the 1960s on Fire Island, one icon comes to mind: Jim Stryker.

vintage gay pics

In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled that photographs of the male nude were not necessarily offensive, just as a depiction of a female nude wasn’t always obscene. These depictions were brought to court and in 1967, the Supreme Court sanctioned it in a landmark ruling that would change the course of nudity in the media going forward.

Champion’s magazines of Stryker were every gay boy’s fantasy.

The men likely just “wanted to have something to remember themselves by,” as Treadwell tells Reuters’ Denis Balibouse and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber.

Now, for the first time, the book and exhibition mean that “these couples get to speak for themselves,” as Nini told CNN’s Oscar Holland in 2020. Nini and Treadwell saw themselves in the photograph and decided to bring it home.

They thought that first photograph was just a one-off, and they didn’t expect to find others like it.

The show, titled “Loving,” is based on the 2020 photography book Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love by Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell.

Nini and Treadwell, who are married, found the photographs at flea markets, antique shops, online auctions and in family archives over the last two decades. Seeing ourselves in the past is as much about being certain of our present and, dare I say, our future.

Then, in 1965, some brave publishers printed the first photographs of male genitalia.