The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a Global Identity 1869-1939

‘Erudite and sumptuous’ – The New York Times

A groundbreaking, global survey of queer art, featuring more than 300 artworks made following the introduction of the term ‘homosexual’ in 1869

An unprecedented and historic new book, The First Homosexuals traces the evolution of the homosexual identity through an archive of more than 300 paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, photographs, and film stills from around the world – many presented in a queer, global, and colonial context for the first time. Accompanying the works are twenty-two original, insightful essays by leading experts in art and queer history, each focusing on one geographical region – from Japan to Australia to the Indigenous populations of South America. Ranging from well-known masterpieces to works by unknown artists and pieces rarely considered in the context of sexuality, The First Homosexuals offers a stunning and illuminating look at the first self-consciously queer art. The book accompanies a groundbreaking exhibition of the same name presented at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago.

Featured artists include Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, Félix Vallotton, Harriet Hosmer, Katsushika Hokusai, Kitagawa Utamaro, Frederic Leighton, Simeon Solomon, Giovanni Boldini, Jacques-Émile Blanche, Berenice Abbott, Clare Atwood, Duncan Grant, Laura Rodig, Carl van Vechten, Beauford Delaney, Anna Klumpke, Sarah Bernhardt, Walter Sickert, Florence Carlyle, Florence Wyle, Frances Loring, Ottilie Roederstein, Florine Stettheimer, Nasta Rojc, Glyn Philpot, Romaine Brooks, Ismael Nery, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, Roberto Montenegro, María Izquierdo, Emilio Baz Viaud, Konstantin Somov, Pascal Adolphe Jean Dagnan-Bouveret, Alice Austen, Emilie Mundt, Bertha Wegmann, Thomas Anshutz, Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, Marie Laurencin, Gerda Wegener, Lili Elbe, Gregorio Prieto, Jorge Larco, Pavel Tchelitchew, Andrey Avinoff, Gustave Courtois, Carlos Baca-Flor, Gustave Moreau, Henry Scott Tuke, Sascha Schneider, Ludwig von Hofmann, Max Oppenheimer, Eugène Jansson, Osmar Schindler, George Platt Lynes, Agnes Goodsir, Tamara de Lempicka, Pedro Lira, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Ladislav Mednyánszky, F. Holland Day, Kristian Zahrtmann, Violet Oakley, Rupert Bunny, Saturnino Herrán, David Paynter, Lionel Wendt, Richmond Barthé, Richard Bruce Nugent, Lady Una Troubridge, Jean Cocteau, Léon Bakst, Lumière Brothers, Marie Höeg & Bolette Berg, José Guadalupe Posada, Claude Cahun, Toyen, Toni Ebel, and Elisàr von Kupffer (Elisarion).

Jonathan David Katz is Associate Professor of Practice in the History of Art and Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, curator of ‘The First Homosexuals’ at Wrightwood 659 Gallery in Chicago, and author of About Face: Stonewall, Revolt, and New Queer Art (2024) and co-editor of Amos Badertscher Images and Stories (2025), both published by Monacelli.