UPDATE: Rex died in late March, 2024, in Amsterdam.
When the artist known as Rex began working in New York City in the mid 1960s, his erotic pointillist style drawings gained immediate notoriety. At the time, photographic erotica was still illegal, but drawings and stories were protected by U.S. Supreme Court Free Speech rulings. His art was showcased in various gay magazines, such as Drummer, Straight to Hell, Honcho and The Advocate, and for a brief time his work illustrated S&M and leather-themed paperback erotic novels.
In addition to his hardcore illustrations, Rex produced poster art for gay venues in NYC and San Francisco. A famous series of iconic posters, calendars and T-shirt designs were commissioned by the legendary New York sex club, The Mineshaft. However, it was his depraved, hardcore fetish drawings in a series of self-published portfolios circulated underground that cemented his reputation as a leading artist of homoerotica. Rex was to illustration what Mapplethorpe was to photography.
A numbered limited edition hard cover portfolio of his drawings was published in Paris in 1986, and Rex Verboten, a retrospective hardcover volume on his work, was distributed by the German publishing house Bruno Gmünder.
As a creator of hyper-masculine, sexually perverse and psychologically disturbing imagery, his subject matter fell victim to the political correctness and self-censorship that intimidated gay media during the Reagan era. For this reason, Rex relocated to Europe, where he lived and worked (Amsterdam) until his death last month (March, 2024).
Among his contemporaries, Rex’s work stands out for its challenging content. His art continues to be confrontational and controversial as he dares to produce images of marginal and perverse sexual urges that many of his viewers may not ever want to admit to but nevertheless find savagely erotic.
Because this blog does not contain hardcore adult content, it was difficult to find examples to illustrate this post. Enter "Rexwerk" into a search engine, however, and mind-blowing examples of his art will sear into your mind. Amazing, singular stuff.
www.servicewerk.de REX SHOW BERLIN SEP 2016
ReplyDeleteYes, some of his work is so hot, such that since you rightly mentioned that 'this blog does not include gay content', I won't even describe some of the best of the very extreme ones, which I totally adore. There was a gallery show of Male Homosexual Artists at a gallery somewhere between the Village and SoHo, and I saw some of the actual pieces finally. Love his work and have been turned on by it for years.
ReplyDeleteThink he is easily the best.
Meant 'adult content', not 'gay content', since that's what the whole blog is about. Maybe some very extreme things like some of those that Rex did are what you meant by that. It's often warned against when creating a blog. Although there's certainly a lot of salaciousness in the Paul Newman sagas. Some didn't think those were true, but I hoped that much of it was, especially Newman getting fucked by Brando.
ReplyDeletestunning
ReplyDeleteHe is an amazing artist and he was honored by the ToF Foundation
ReplyDeleteFOR HIS ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS AND STEADFAST COMMITMENT TO THE ART AND CULTURE OF OUR COMMUNITY
http://www.worldoftomoffinland.com/tomsblog/?p=18360
simply fantastic!
ReplyDeleteGarçons dangereux du masoch milieu !
ReplyDeleteRex, à travers ses illustrations, révèle les dessous de l'hypermasculinité.
- Beau Mec à Deauville
Rest In Peace, Rex. As a kid in the late '60s and through the 70s, I greatly enjoyed your work. R.I.P.
ReplyDelete