George Platt Lynes

Reviews / Votes

In 1927, Lynes had met a couple, Glenway Wescott and Monroe Wheeler, eventually a writer and an arts administrator (at the Museum of Modern Art in New York) respectively. .... The following year he joined them in the south of France. The relationship became triangular, though not equilaterally: poor Wescott was somewhat edged to one side, even though the three of them lived together for more than a decade. As Ellenzweig rightly comments, 'these three men designed a way of life that appears as inventively bohemian as the roundelay of London's Bloomsbury Group.' ... Both scholarly and gossipy, this book has a cast of hundreds ... but Ellenzweig marshals his material with a steady hand. * Gregory Woods, Emeritus Professor of Gay & Lesbian Studies, Nottingham Trent University, UK, and author of Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World * This book is rich in details about his life and the world that produced him. It is the sort of book that you can open to a random page and be caught by some detail that will have you racing to Google to learn more... For anybody looking to study or recreate gay life in the mid 20th century, this is a deluxe road map. * Skot Armstrong, ArtilleryMag.com * Ellenzweig spent many years researching his Lynes book, and his energy and enthusiasm for his subject never flag. He is a tireless scholar, but he is also an insightful critic who can do a close read of any of the Lynes photos printed in the book and make you understand them more intimately. I read George Platt Lynes: The Daring Eye slowly because I didn't want it to end. This is a significant and painstaking and immersive book, shining a light on all aspects of a very flawed man who himself was one of the first artists to shine a light on the beauty of the male form in photographs. * Dan Callahan, Out In Print * Ellenzweig's splendid biography shows more thoroughly than ever before the full range of his talent. * Joseph M. Ortiz, The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide * One of the great virtues of Ellenzweig's sweeping book ... is that it's as much cultural history as personal biography. Lynes was able to photograph so many luminaries because he moved in their circles, and his evident talent made him a likely collaborator on many of their artistic projects. Ellenzweig provides in-depth accounts of these figures and projects as they came into Lynes' orbit, from Paul Cadmus' portrait of Lynes and their friends, to [Lincoln] Kirstein's establishment of the New York City Ballet under [George] Balanchine, and to the dazzling premier of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's opera Four Saints in Three Acts. In this respect The Daring Eye follows the model of Martin Duberman's The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein and Jerry Rosco's Glenway Wescott Personally, two biographies of Lynes' friends that show the extent to which 20th-century art was driven by a transatlantic circle of gay friends and lovers. * Joseph M. Ortiz, Gay & Lesbian Review * Ellenzweig takes on a herculean task of carefully documenting the life of one of the unsung icons of gay imagery as well as that of a master photographer. * Jeffrey Felner, New York Journal of Books * George Platt Lynes: The Daring Eye bursts with detail about painters, sculptors, writers, photographers, performers, patrons and socialites during a thrilling time for art. From the end of World War I into the fifties, the emergence of modernism and expressionism profoundly influenced American and European culture. Allen Ellenzweig brings that world to life alongside George Platt Lyne's artistic brilliance, complex temperament and untamed sensuality. The book is a breathless ride. * Claudia Keenan, BookTrib (booktrib.com) * Ellenzweig gives the great photographer George Platt Lynes his full due in this intimate, expansive, richly detailed biography. Lynes lived a tragically short life but his work and friendships put him at the center of 20th century American history. His portraits of artists and his pioneering work in the male nude both receive here the attention they deserve.The book is an encyclopedia of cultural and social changes before, during, and after World War II, exploring not just photography, but literature, dance, music, fashion, museum life, and sexuality. The huge cast includes Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson, Paul Cadmus, Katherine Anne Porter, Cecil Beaton, Lincoln Kirstein, and Alfred Kinsey, as well as Lynes's lovers, Glenway Wescott and Monroe Wheeler. But my favorite figure is George's younger brother, Russell Lynes, the historian, who remained loyal and supportive to his charming, high-energy brother throughout his life * Christopher Bram, author of Father of Frankenstein * This masterly biography is a triumph of comprehensive research and highly sophisticated analysis. Ellenzweig's graceful, nuanced assessments expand our understanding not only of Lynes the individual, but of an entire epoch of cultural history. This is scholarship of the first rank, as well as psychological acuity of remarkable depth. * Martin Duberman, author of The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein * At last! A sweeping biography of George Platt Lynes, whose exquisite fashion photography, portraits of major cultural figures, and male and female nudes have attracted considerable interest in recent years. Drawing on his extensive research in Lynes's intimate correspondence and journals, Ellenzweig has unearthed illuminating new details about the once charmed and ultimately tragic life of this daring mid-century photographer and his influential gay circle. * George Chauncey, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia University, and author of Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 * George Platt Lynes dramatically staged and photographed a cosmopolitan network of friends, collaborators, and lovers during the 1930s and 1940s, revolutionizing such genres as the male nude, dance photography, portraiture, and fashion photography. Allen Ellenzweig's deeply researched and engagingly written biography provides context for the (re)discovery of an influential modern culture-maker. * Tirza Latimer, Professor Emerita, History of Art and Visual Culture, California College of the Arts, San Francisco *