Dan Atkinson
Muscular Gay Men Mardi Gras - Daring Interracial Love Mid-Century - Gay Interest, 1949
Oil on Masonite
16 × 9 in / 40.6 × 22.9 cm
$ 22,000.00
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The present mid-century work features two taboos in one painting. In 1949, it was verboten to glamorize gay life and even more prohibited to show interracial love. This work by...
The present mid-century work features two taboos in one painting. In 1949, it was verboten to glamorize gay life and even more prohibited to show interracial love. This work by Dan Atkinson combines both under the guise of a Mardi Gras theme. br A white man and a black man, with shirts off, display their ripples while they frolic with each other under romantic moonlight. Both have tight muscular bodies, and both are wearing equally tight pants. The long snake wrapping around the white man's leg is a very aggressive phallic statement - while his knee touches the thight of the black man. br This radical painting was created generations before its time and made an important early statement about gay and interracial life in America. br It is signed and dated lower right and inscribed on the verso. Dan Atkinson was shown at the famous Maxwell Galleries in San Francisco in the 1950s. br Framed in period frame to 20 x 13