Giving Compass' Take:

• This post from The Conversation (via the Kinsey Institute) honors the life and legacy of George Platt Lynes, a gay photographer whose study of the male form in the early 20th century was groundbreaking.

• What can we learn from Lynes' biography about the importance of supporting artistic visionaries? How might his life inspire more LGBTQ+-focused funding?

• Unfortunately, the taboos Lynes examined aren't completely gone, even in the nonprofit world. Over half of foundation LGBTQ staff and board members are in the closet.


From the late 1920s until his death in 1955, George Platt Lynes was one of the world’s most successful commercial and fine art photographers.

His work was included in one of the first exhibitions to showcase photography at the Museum of Modern Art in 1932, and he showed at the extremely popular Julien Levy Gallery in New York City. His photographs for Vogue and Bazaar, his shots of dancers at the School of American Ballet and his portraits of some of the most important creative figures of his era were lauded for their innovative use of lighting, props and posing.

But in his view, his most important works were his nude photographs of men. Yet during Lynes’ life, few even knew of their existence.

Because of prevailing attitudes toward homosexuality, which included criminalization and strict obscenity laws, Lynes – himself a gay man – had to keep this incredibly influential and important body of work hidden away.

These nuanced photographs of the male form ended up sparking a friendship between Lynes and Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey, the founder of the Institute for Sex Research, later renamed the Kinsey Institute, at Indiana University. Upon his death, Lynes gifted over 2,300 negatives and 600 photographs to the Institute for Sex Research.

Read the full article about the legacy of George Platt Lynes by Rebecca Fasman at The Conversation.