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George Platt Lynes
The Ritter Brothers
ca. 1934

Name: The Ritter Brothers
Brand: George Platt Lynes

George Platt Lynes

George Platt Lynes was lauded as one the world’s top commercial photographers in the first half of the 20th century, known for his portraits of important cultural figures, surreal fashion shoots and innovative use of lighting and evocative sets. However, in an era when homosexuality was considered a crime, Lynes had to keep secret his best work: erotic nude photographs of men.

Born in 1907 in New Jersey, Lynes attended the Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts, graduating in 1925. In his youth, Lynes had dreamed of becoming a writer. He published a literary journal and opened a bookstore, both of which were unsuccessful. When he inherited a trove of photographic equipment from a friend, Lynes turned his focus toward a career in photography.

Self-taught, Lynes proved to be a gifted talent behind the camera. His preternatural understanding of the interplay between light, shadow and form garnered critical acclaim. In 1932, Lynes had his first solo exhibition, at Leggett Gallery, followed by a two-artist show with photographer Walker Evans at Julien Levy Gallery. By 1933, Lynes became a central figure in New York photography, whose stylized technique was sought by magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country and Vogue.

In 1935, the American Ballet Company (now the New York City Ballet) commissioned Lynes to photograph their principal dancers and performances, leading to Lynes’s appointment as the company’s primary photographer for the next 20 years.

While Lynes enjoyed immense success as a fashion and commercial photographer from the 1930s to the 1950s, he was secretly photographing male nudes — a subject considered highly taboo at the time. Fearing criminal reprisal, Lynes hid the photos and his sexual orientation from the public, sharing his work with a few select friends. Among them was Dr. Alfred Kinsey, founder of the Kinsey Institute, who, in the late 1940s, was researching human sexuality. Enthralled by Lynes’s figurative, black and white photos of the male form, Kinsey purchased more than 600 prints and several hundred negatives at the risk of prosecution.

After he was diagnosed with lung cancer, in 1955, Lynes destroyed many of his negatives and prints. However, he entrusted a sizeable volume of his male nudes to the Kinsey Institute, which today holds the largest collection of Lynes’s works, second only to the Lynes estate. In 2019, an exhibition of images culled from the Kinsey collection, “Sensual/Sexual/Social: The Photography of George Platt Lynes,” was held at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.

Long after his death, Lynes’s legacy has shaped the evolution of sexual and gender norms. His works are highly sought by galleries and collectors of modern and contemporary photography.

On 1stDibs, discover a range of George Platt Lynes photography.

1950s Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil

Jack L. Gray
Mid Century Modern Framed Ram Boat Signed Oil Signed Jack Lorimer Gray 1950s 60s, Circa 1950s

$75,000

H 29.25 in W 41 in

Seven Scenes from the Life of Apollo

By Jacopo Guarana

Located in New York, NY

Attributed to Jacopo Guarana (Verona 1720 – 1808 Venice) Canvas, unsigned The Deeds of Apollo Provenance: Suida-Manning Collection These seven scenes are brilliant evocations o...

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18th Century and Earlier Baroque Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

Jacopo Guarana
Seven Scenes from the Life of Apollo

$50,000

H 4.75 in W 11.125 in

The Infant Saint John the Baptist with a Lamb

Located in New York, NY

Provenance: James Byrnes, Los Angeles (1917-2011) Giusto Le Court was born Josse or Justus de Corte in the Flemish city of Ypres. His father Jean was a sculptor and presumably his earliest training was with him before he entered the studio of Cornelis van Mildert. The young artist was clearly influenced by the dominant Flemish sculptor of the time, Artus Quellinus the Elder, with whom he may have worked on the decoration of the Amsterdam City Hall. Following the lead of many northern artists he travelled to Rome, perhaps more than once, before settling in Venice around 1655. It was there, as one of a colony of expatriate artists, that he made his name as a sculptor. One of his first Venetian commissions was for the monument to Alvise Mocenigo in the Church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti, where Le Court sculpted the marble figures of Strength and Justice. He also collaborated with the celebrated architect Baldassare Longhena, most famously for the high altar of Santa Maria della Salute, where he carved the multi-figured altarpiece depicting the Queen of Heaven Expelling the Plague. The present marble sculpture depicts the infant Saint John the Baptist, reclining, wearing his traditional hair-shirt, embracing a lamb, and holding the bottom of his attribute, a reed cross. Attached to his shirt is a baptismal cup, with which he would become associated later in his life. Veneration of the infant Saint John the Baptist was prevalent throughout Italy and images of the saint in childhood—often called “Giovannino,” or little John...

Category

17th Century Renaissance Sculptures

Materials

Marble

The Infant Saint John the Baptist with a Lamb, after 1655

$30,000

H 21.5 in W 14 in D 11 in

The 1564 Medici Danti Map of California

By Fra Egnazio Danti

Located in New York, NY

Florentine, Probably Seventeenth Century Titled L’ultime parti note nel Indie occidentali Dated on the edge of the cartouche: “M.D. LXIII. M.AG” [1564…the month of August] In the 1560s Cosimo I de’Medici, the powerful Duke of Florence, undertook a major renovation of the Palazzo Vecchio, the venerable palace that to this day dominates the city at the Piazza della Signoria. For the Sala della Guardaroba, literally the wardrobe room, but in fact the storeroom of the Duke’s most precious holdings, Cosimo conceived of a grand decorative project that was to reflect in one space the entire cosmos --both an indication of the Duke’s ambition and an allusion to his name. The plan, supervised by Giorgio Vasari, involved the construction of walnut cabinets to contain the Medici treasures, on the outside doors of which were to be placed large hand-painted maps specially commissioned to document and illustrate the current knowledge of the world. Portraits of famous men were to decorate the tops of the cabinets and two large globes –one representing the terrestrial world, the other celestial—were to descend from openings in the ceiling. The commission for the maps, inspired by Ptolemy’s Geographia, was given to the celebrated mathematician and cosmographer, Fra Egnazio Danti (Perugia 1536-1585 Alatri). Fifty-three maps were ultimately created. Thirty were conceived and executed by Danti between 1563 and 1575. The remaining twenty-three were completed by Stefano Bonsignori between 1576 and 1686. They remain in place in Florence in the room for which they were created. The present work is an exact-size painted, drawn and inscribed copy of Danti’s map of California...

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