Role models of greatness.

Here you will discover the back stories of kings, titans of industry, stellar athletes, giants of the entertainment field, scientists, politicians, artists and heroes – all of them gay or bisexual men. If their lives can serve as role models to young men who have been bullied or taught to think less of themselves for their sexual orientation, all the better. The sexual orientation of those featured here did not stand in the way of their achievements.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

George Quaintance

George Quaintance (1902-1957) was a gay American painter, photographer and sculptor who produced a large body of homoerotic art of an exaggerated macho, muscular quality. He was a major influence on later artists such as Tom of Finland.

His work became known to his niche market when published in male physique magazines, championed by Bob Mizer of the Athletic Model Guild, publisher of Physique Pictorial (1951-1990). Many of Quaintance’s photographs and paintings depict idealized muscular semi-nude males in an American West setting.

Quaintance was born in northwest Virginia, surrounded by the Blue Ridge mountains, where he grew up on a farm near Luray, 90 miles west of Washington DC. He displayed a strong aptitude for art while still a youth. By the age of 18 he was studying painting and drawing at the Art Students League in New York City (Norman Rockwell and Jackson Pollock were students there), where he also explored dancing, a skill he utilized in numerous stints as a vaudeville performer of classical ballet, tap and the tango. He was briefly married to Miriam Chester, even though he was actively homosexual. In the 1930s he became a hairstylist, perhaps as a way to explore solutions to his own thin, limp hair. From his early 30s he wore wigs to further his macho image as a handsome, youthful body builder (photo of Quaintance at top of post and below). George was one of the most sought-after women's hairstylists of the 1930s, with star clients the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Jeanette MacDonald, Lynne Fontanne and Helen Hayes.


His first work in the field of art was in (unattributed) advertising, but by the mid 1930s he had begun to sell freelance cover illustrations to pulp and movie fan magazines, sold at burlesque halls and under the counter at discreet newsstands. These illustrations of pinup girls were usually signed with the pseudonym "Geo. Quintana." By 1937 he was the highest-paid illustrator for Gay French magazine, earning more than $50,000 a year. As such, he was a forerunner to later masters of the female pin-up genre, such as Vargas. During this time he also painted portraits of Washington DC diplomats, society wives and his friends.


In 1938, George teamed up with Victor Garcia, who became his model, life partner and business associate. Victor, the subject of many of George’s photographs, and George were not sexually faithful to one another, each openly taking on other lovers. In 1951, Quaintance's art was used for the first cover of Physique Pictorial, a homoerotic magazine edited by Bob Mizer. George wrote articles and provided artwork for a slew of magazines catering to the burgeoning bodybuilding cult of the 1940s and 50s. During this time George often judged bodybuilding competitions.

Because of the mores of the day, his published work did not include full-frontal nudity, which was depicted only in private commissions. Within a year of George’s death, however, Tom of Finland, who cited Quaintance as a major influence, broke through the barrier of full frontal male nudity.

George and Victor moved to an Arizona home they dubbed Rancho Siesta, the headquarters of Studio Quaintance, a business venture to produce and promote Quaintance's artwork, which began to fetishize the macho cowboy look. His paintings from this era also depicted Mexican, Native American and Central American men, and for a time George took a Mexican lover. Quaintance's Arizona “ranch”, as touted in the pages of Physique Pictorial magazine, was described as a landed estate in Paradise Valley. The setting was described as a place populated by livestock, models, staffers, ex-lovers and a coterie of followers who were young, handsome, built like gods and clad in little more than 501 Levis and boots. It was all a ruse. In reality this Arizona studio/residence was a modest 1950s ranch style house in the Loma Linda neighborhood of east Phoenix. The house, built on a small suburban lot, still stands.




In 1953, Quaintance completed a series of three paintings about a matador, modeled by Angel Avila, another of George’s lovers. By 1956, the Studio Quaintance business had become so successful that George could not keep up with the demand for his works, often working through the night, taking pep pills to remain awake.



George died of a heart attack on November 8, 1957, at the age of fifty-five, but he will not be forgotten. Ken Furtado and John Waybright are soon publishing a biography titled Quaintance: The Short Life of an American Art Pioneer. Stay tuned.

 
This George Quaintance photograph of model Harry Hambley appeared in the magazine Physique Pictorial in the 1950s. Although Quaintance was a skilled and prolific photographer, it is his paintings that form the bulk of his legacy.


5 comments:

  1. I think gay men should get bodybuilding back for themselves as it always was. The fact that modern bodybuiling was the creation of a bisexual man (Eugen Sandow)who enjoyed the male gaze since he also felt attracted to the same sex shows that this is a queer activity. Even though it had to be in subtle ways given the homophobia of the time bodybuilding managed to satisfy the gay male gaze perfectly.

    Bodybuilding is a queer heritage,it belongs to gay men, from this perspective, heterosexual men don't belong in bodybuilding, they are not supposed to obsessed over the male body and/or engage in homoerotic activities that clearly appeal to the gay eye and sensibility by nature; it's heterosexual men the aliens, the infiltrators, the intruders in bodybuilding; not gay men. Gay men are the actual heirs of bodybuilding.

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  2. very well stated

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  3. Quaintance was such an original artist, one recognizes his work instantly. It's been written that he once had a wild party at his casita in Phoenix and explicit photos were taken. In 1957 when Quaintance died several of his models went into the casita to get the photos. Sadly, others took the opportunity to ransack the casita. The pep pills and staying up late probably contributed to his heart attack as did the stress of creating his homoerotic art in the conformist 50s. As far as bodybuilding goes, it was homosexual culture. Who else would buy photos and physique magazines of nearly naked men of physical perfection. Those physique models must have known the photos were directed at a gay audience. Culture decried is culture denied. -Rj

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