The First Homosexuals:The Birth of a New Identity 1869-1939 by Monacelli

“Erudite and sumptuous” — The New York Times

Some books don’t just sit on a shelf. They rewrite the shelf entirely. This is one of them.

A landmark work of art history and queer scholarship, this breathtaking volume traces the evolution of homosexual identity through an extraordinary archive of more than 300 paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, photographs, and film stills — gathered from across the globe and spanning the pivotal years of 1869 to 1939. Many of these works are presented in a queer, global, and colonial context for the very first time.

Twenty-two original essays by leading experts in art and queer history accompany the images, each focusing on a distinct geographical region — from Japan to Australia to the Indigenous communities of South America. The range is staggering: celebrated masterpieces alongside rarely seen works, canonical names beside artists long overlooked.

Featured artists include Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, John Singer Sargent, Claude Cahun, Tamara de Lempicka, Marsden Hartley, Berenice Abbott, Jean Cocteau, and dozens more — a constellation of voices that together illuminate what it meant to see, and to be seen, differently.

Companion to a groundbreaking exhibition at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago, this is the kind of book you linger over — the kind that changes how you look at art, at history, and at the quiet, persistent courage of those who came before.

A must for lovers of art history, LGBTQ+ studies, and anyone who believes that visibility has always mattered. We’re proud to have it on our shelves.

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