Rejected by Museums Around the World, This New Art Exhibition Explores the Historical Roots of the Term 'Homosexual'

An ambitious new exhibition titled “The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939” has opened at Chicago’s Wrightwood 659 gallery, featuring over 300 works by more than 125 artists from 40 countries. Curated by Jonathan D. Katz, the show traces the historical roots of the term 'homosexual,' coined in 1868 by Hungarian writer Karl Maria Kertbeny, and explores the artistic and social transformations surrounding the emergence of homosexual identity up to 1939. The exhibition includes loans from major institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée d’Orsay, with works by artists such as George Catlin, Jean Cocteau, John Singer Sargent, and Thomas Eakins, organized into eight thematic sections.

This exhibition matters because it tackles a subject that has been rejected by museums around the world, addressing the complex relationship between visual art and the formation of sexual identity during a pivotal period. By gathering such a vast array of works from diverse cultures and time periods, the show challenges modern audiences to reconsider how labels like 'homosexual' are applied historically and whether contemporary categories can accurately describe past lives and desires. The scale of the undertaking is particularly notable given that Wrightwood 659 is a relatively small, new institution pulling off what curator Katz describes as the kind of exhibition typically mounted by massive museums like the Met.