## Abstract
This is a biography of George Platt Lynes (1907–1955), the gregarious American portrait, dance, fashion, and male nude photographer whose career spanned the late 1920s through his early death. From age eighteen, Lynes entered the cosmopolitan world of the American expatriate community in Paris when he became acquainted with the salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Intending to pursue a writing and small-press publishing career, Lynes also began photographing authors like Stein, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Colette. Soon, he turned exclusively to photography, establishing himself as one of the premier fashion photographers in the Condé Nast stable, documenting the ballet companies of George Balanchine/Lincoln Kirstein, and pursuing a private obsession with seductive images of young male nudes rarely published in his lifetime. Lynes’s personal life was as glamorous and theatrical as his images with their brilliant studio lighting and dramatic Surrealist setups. Barely out of his teens, he met publisher Monroe Wheeler, who was already in a relationship with emerging expatriate novelist Glenway Wescott. The peripatetic threesome maintained a polyamorous connection that lasted some fifteen years. Their New York apartment became a mecca for elegant name-dropping dinner parties. Their ménage-a-trois complicates our understanding of the pre-Stonewall gay “closet.” This biography, drawing upon intimate letters and an unpublished memoir of Lynes’s life by his brother, the writer and editor Russell Lynes, paints a portrait of the emerging influence of gays and lesbians across cultural genres that defined transatlantic cosmopolitan culture and presaged later gay political consciousness.

lgli/9780190219666.pdf

lgrsnf/9780190219666.pdf

zlib/Biography & Autobiography/Literary Biography/Allen Ellenzweig/George Platt Lynes: The Daring Eye_21919843.pdf

Allen Ellenzweig, Steven Haas, George P. Lynes II

Ellenzweig, Allen

IRL Press at Oxford University Press

Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

German Historical Institute London

Oxford scholarship online, New York, NY, 2022

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

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"This is a biography of George Platt Lynes (1907-1955), the gregarious American portrait, dance, fashion, and male nude photographer whose career spanned the late 1920s to his early death. From age 18, Lynes entered the cosmopolitan world of the American expatriate community in Paris when he became acquainted with the salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Intending to pursue a writing and small press publishing career, Lynes also began photographing authors like Stein, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Colette. Soon, he turned exclusively to photography, establishing himself as one of the premier fashion photographers in the Condé Nast stable, documenting the ballet companies of George Balanchine/Lincoln Kirstein, and pursuing a private obsession with seductive images of young male nudes rarely published in his lifetime. Lynes's private life was as glamourous and theatrical as his images with their brilliant studio lighting and dramatic Surrealist set-ups. Barely out of his teens, he met publisher Monroe Wheeler who was already in a relationship with emerging expatriate novelist Glenway Wescott. The peripatetic threesome maintained a polyamorous connection that lasted some 15 years. Their New York apartment became a mecca for elegant name-dropping dinner parties. Their ménage-a-trois complicates our understanding of the pre-Stonewall gay "closet." This biography, drawing upon intimate letters and an unpublished memoir of Lynes's life by his brother, writer and editor Russell Lynes, paints a portrait of the emerging influence of gays and lesbians across cultural genres that defined transatlantic cosmopolitan culture and presaged later gay political consciousness"-- Provided by publisher

George Platt Lynes: The Daring Eye is a life of the gregarious American portrait, dance, fashion, and male nude photographer whose career spanned the late 1920s to 1955. From age 18, Lynes entered the cosmopolitan world of the American expatriate community in Paris when he became acquainted
with the salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Intending to pursue a literary and small press publishing career, Lynes also began photographing authors like Stein, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Colette. Soon, he turned exclusively to photography, establishing himself as one of the premier
fashion photographers in the Condé Nast stable, documenting the early ballets of George Balanchine, and pursuing his private obsession with seductive images of young male nudes almost never published in his time. Lynes's private life was as glamorous and theatrical as his images with their brilliant
studio lighting and dramatic Surrealist set-ups. Barely out his teens, he met the publisher Monroe Wheeler who was already in a relationship with the emerging expatriate novelist Glenway Wescott. The peripatetic threesome maintained a polyamorous connection that lasted some 15 years. Their New York
apartment became a mecca for elegant cocktail and name-dropping dinner parties. Their ménage-à-trois complicates our understanding of the pre-Stonewall gay "closet." This biography, drawing upon intimate letters and an unpublished memoir of Lynes's life by his brother, writer and editor Russell
Lynes, paints a portrait of the emerging influence of gays and lesbians in the visual, literary, and performing arts that defined transatlantic cosmopolitan culture and presaged later gay political activism.

Cover Page
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Note on Sources
PART I: THE PRECOCIOUS PUP
1. Past Is Prologue— 1955
2. Imperial Fantasies
3. The Great Barrington Boy
4. “Baby George” at the Stein Salon
5. Missing Miss Stein and Hating Yale
PART II: THREE- CORNERED HATS
6. The Triangle Takes Shape
7. The Hôtel Welcome, Jean Cocteau, and the Return to Paris
8. A New Career
9. Camera Work
10. You’ve Got to Have Friends
11. Gertrude in Clover Amiably
12. Twice a Debutante
PART III: THREE- CORNERED HATS TIMES TWO
13. The Mural Show and a Threat of Marriage
14. A Death in the Family
15. Four Saints and a Ménage- à- Trois
16. Fifty Photographs and a Family Wedding at City Hall
17. A Country House; Cocteau in Coney Island; The Sleepwalker
18. A Return to Paris; Bachelor and PaJaMa Parties
PART IV: THE HEIGHT OF FASHION
19. Models, Myths, 640 Madison Avenue
20. The Affair Beaton and a Conversation Piece
21. An Anthology of Faces at Pierre Matisse
PART V: BATTLES ON THE HOMEFRONT
22. The War Comes Home
23. Breaking Away
24. Fortune Tellers and Paying Debts
25. “Finis”
PART VI: PARADISE LOST
26. Exiles in Paradise
27. “Vogue- vagueness”
28. Dr. Kinsey, E. M. Forster, and Bob: The Dinner Party
29. Bankrupt
30. The Great Barrington Boy II
31. A Naked Legacy
32. Vapors and Friends
33. A Gutsy and Courageous Performance
Notes
Archival Materials and Bibliography
Index

"The elegant male nude photographs of George Platt Lynes, many never before published, from a newly discovered archive of negatives. George Platt Lynes was the preeminent celebrity portraitist of his day, shooting for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and creating distinctive photographs of iconic cultural figures such as Diana Vreeland, Salvador Dalí, and Orson Welles. But he also produced a separate body of work, kept largely hidden during his lifetime: photographs of the male nude. Many of these photos were shot in the studio and, like his fashion and dance work, were painstakingly posed and lit. They have a cinematic allure that evokes 1940s Hollywood and the lost era of New York's café society. Many seem to illustrate some unwritten mythology. Others reveal private obsessions of the photographer, who was always alert to the sculptural qualities of a young man at his most vital. This is the only Platt Lynes book to focus on the male nude images in a comprehensive and carefully considered manner. It is the first book to be published with the cooperation of the artist's estate, which has provided unprecedented access to institutional and private collections, including the Kinsey Institute and the Guggenheim Museum."

A precocious American youth who entered the orbit of American and British expatriates populating Paris and the South of France in the 1920s, George Platt Lynes went on to become a supremely assured portrait photographer documenting the great figures of literature, painting, opera, and dance of mid-twentieth century. This new biography tells his story in full

2022-07-10