Self Portrait with Friend
Poet Dani Yourukova responds to Daisy Tinney's photography in Te Papa collections.
Photography, illustration and visual arts
Through art, LGBTQI+ communities make the invisible visible. LGBTQI+ artists share their histories, experiences and stories through visual mediums of painting, photography and digital illustration.
Photography
‘I am who I am’: Photographer Fiona Clark on Auckland queer culture in the 70s
Fiona Clark is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated art photographers. In this essay, she recalls her time as an art student in Auckland in the early 1970s, when she began to take photographs of the people and the night life around her.
The Dorian Society: An entrée into Wellington’s homosexual world
Drag performer Johnny Croskery’s album from the 1960s includes photographs taken at the Dorian Society’s annual fancy dress balls in the 1960s. In this excerpt from ‘Mates & Lovers’, Chris Brickell explores the origins of the Dorian Society.
Painting, comics, illustration and digital art
Poutokomanawa: a comic about Carmen Rupe
This comic was created by queer trans illustrator, comic creator, and designer Sam Orchard after seeing the exhibition Poutokomanawa: The Carmen Rupe Generation at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, Wellington, in 2019.
Louise Henderson’s ‘Les deux amies’
Two female lovers are intimately entwined in a series of delicate interlocking planes. The work is remarkable not only for its stylistic innovations but also for the fact it depicts a lesbian couple — a daring choice for prim and proper 1950s New Zealand.
'Man in white' Glen Philpot
The subject of Man in white is Philpot’s friend Jan Erland. This is one of a group of portraits that he painted of Erland, all on the theme of sports and leisure. Writing to his sister Daisy, Philpot described ‘every moment with this dear Jan’ as filled with ‘inspiration and beauty’.
Glyn Philpot was gay, and lived at a time when homosexuality was a criminal offence. He was never explicit about his sexuality, but in the 1930s he painted numerous works like this one – loving portraits of men in his life.
Artist stories
Frances Hodgkins: A portrait of queer love
Art historian Joanne Drayton explores the unconventional life of painter Frances Hodgkins, arguing that absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence.
Toss Woollaston’s love triangle
This portrait of Rodney Kennedy was painted by Toss Woollaston in 1936. The two men met at art school in Dunedin, and became lovers in 1932. After Toss’ marriage in 1936, they remained life-long friends. Chris Brickell tells their story.
Felix Kelly, a gay expatriate
Art historian David Maskill explores the surrealist vision of painter Felix Kelly.
Hidden Agender: The life of Eugenia Falleni, a woman who lived as a man in the 1890s
Lauren Lysaght’s mixed media work Hidden Agender is inspired by the life of Eugenia Falleni (about 1875–1938), a woman who presented herself as man in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and whose life was placed under the microscope in 1920 when she was charged with murder and ‘sex fraud’.
A rural love story
Te Papa is kaitiaki of the New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt. This panel was made by Welby Ings for Ian Williams. In the late 1990s, Welby wrote this reflection on their relationship and the creation of the panel.
Listen: The Topp Twins and the dolls
These miniature works of knitted art hail from Invercargill, and might just be the ultimate Kiwiana tribute to two of New Zealand’s most popular characters – Camp Mother and Camp Leader, the creations of Lynda and Jools Topp – the Topp Twins.
Surviving the Plague Years: Living with AIDS
In 1987/88 Fiona Clark created two albums of intimate photographs of four New Zealanders who had been diagnosed with HIV. While Fiona visually documented their days, the subjects in turn contributed their own words and thoughts to the album. Michael Stevens has a copy of the albums on his book shelf. In this essay, he reflects on living with HIV then and now.
A handshake, a quilt, the living
Artist Owen Connors and art curator Simon Gennard discuss the influential role that the New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt has played in their work as a marking point in a trajectory of queer history.