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The James Gardiner Collection. Photographs.
- Reference
- 2008789i
- Pictures
Collection contents
Online resources
- Related materials at Wellcome Library Listen to an interview with James Gardiner: View resource
About this work
Description
Photographs, photographic postcards (many inscribed), a few programmes and other genres, collected by James Gardiner, ca. 1970-2013. Subjects: transgender people, comic homophobic prints, gay men, female impersonators and cross-dressers, with extensive sections on soldiers and sailors in World War I. They document and illustrate transgender and proto-gay culture mainly in the UK, America and Europe, together with a few from North Africa, mostly ca. 1860-1960
Physical description
1,082 photographs : photoprints
Contents
James Gardiner Collection: photographs of military, naval, and prisoner-of-war camp drag (247 items). Originally titled 'Green Album'.
James Gardiner Collection: romantic fantasy and comic postcards, and photographs on gender and masculinity (288 items). Continental European hand coloured romantic fantasy postcards (mostly French, 1920-30). Rogues gallery: actors, writers, dancers, musicians, royalty etc.presenting gay public image. British and American comic postcards representing behaviour regarded as unmasculine. "The Dear Love of Comrades": private photographs 1900-1920 on gender play and masculine affection in the army, navy and theatre. Originally titled 'Blue Album'.
James Gardiner Collection: photograph album labelled ‘Drag’ (266 items). Theatrical female impersonation and gender ambiguous individuals – music hall, commercial theatre, pantomime, amateur theatricals, 1860-1950. Mostly presentation photographs signed on the sheet, often with dedication. Originally titled 'Black Album labelled Drag'.
James Gardiner Collection: unlabelled photograph album (241 items). Material published for collection by gay men: homoerotica, "beefcake" photographs,classical sculptures and paintings of the male nude, wrestlers, strong men and idealized men, ethnographic nudes and Sicilian photographs by Von Gloeden and Von Pluschow, ca. 1890-1930. Originally titled 'Black Album Unlabelled'.
James Gardiner Collection: Victorian album. 35 cartes de visite presented in a 19th century photograph album depicting private and theatrical cross-dressing, mostly 1860s, including photographs of Boulton and Park
Copy of published book by James Gardiner: Who's a pretty boy then? : one hundred & fifty years of gay life in pictures, London ; New York : Serpent's Tail, 1997, which draws on the present collection and other collections
Undivided sheet of unmounted cabinet photographs
Undivided sheet of unmounted cartes de visite
Reference
Wellcome Library no. 2008789i
Type/Technique
Holdings
- 1,077 photographs
Where to find it
Military, naval, and prisoner-of-war camp drag
Location Status Access Closed storesRomantic fantasy and comic postcards
Location Status Access Closed storesPhotograph album labelled ‘Drag'
Location Status Access Closed storesNote
Unlabelled photograph album
Location Status Access Closed storesNote
Victorian album
Location Status Access Closed stores