CURRENT & UPCOMING PROJECTS

Harry Bush: His Art and His Life
Co-Published by The Bob Mizer Museum and Photographic Archives & Verlag Kettler

Having begun his artistic career at age 40, after 20 years in the military, Harry began his career in the mid-1960s in Bob Mizer’s landmark publication, Physique Pictorial. Harry’s work is full of humor and irony, and definitely sexy. Through the discovery of hundreds of letters, his writing reveals a man who was shy, withdrawn, and unsure of his place in the artistic and cultural landscape of his time as well as within the gay community around him. But Harry was a leader in the cadre of gay artists who helped shape gay visual culture in the last quarter of the 20th century—artists such as Tom of Finland, Etienne, Bill Ward, Rex, and many others. Harry, however, had a darker side—often withdrawn and reclusive, he rejected the gay culture he found and on several occasions nearly destroyed all of his artwork.

Working with the archival collections at the Bob Mizer Museum and Photographic Archives—the organization housing the largest collection of Harry’s artwork and papers, Leather Archives & Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum, Tom of Finland Foundation, GLBT Historical Society, Bishopsgate Institute, and ONE Archives, the co-editors have amassed hundreds of letters written by—and to—Harry. Primary original research has been conducted on over 2,000 pages of material which have been processed and analyzed. What emerges is a complex portrait of an American artist whose psyche was shaped by a simultaneous thirst for visibility and isolation. Having served in WWII, he worked at the Pentagon in the 1950s, living in Washington during the Lavendar Scare. In the mid 1960s, he moved back to Southern California determined to be an artist and part of "the gay community." We explore gay history in those heady, sex-positive, anything goes years after the Stonewall uprising, and the explosion of gay magazines which were a lifeline for so many people.

What the book contains
- Sixty-thousand-word biographical essay.
- Extensive material drawn from multiple archival institutions.
- More than a hundred reproductions of Harry Bush’s artwork, including both well-known and never-published images.
- Scholarly essays contextualizing Harry’s work and legacy.

Book specifications
- ~200 pages
- Hardcover with dust jacket
- Full color throughout
- 24 × 32 cm (9.45 × 12.6 inches)
- English-language edition
- Published by Verlag Kettler (Germany)

Harry Bush: His Art and His Life is currently in production and you can support/pre-order the publication via Kickstarter!

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