“I wanted to photograph naked young men as opulently and as attentively as those professional ladies appearing in Playboy-type magazines were photographed,” James Bidgood told Another Man magazine.
In 2025 Salzgeber published Dreamlands, a lush art book with 97 color photographs —97 “Folies des hommes”— Bidgood took in the 60s. And filmmaker Bart Everly released Velvet Vision, a spellbinding documentary on the legendary queer cinema pioneer and the making of Pink Narcissus (1971). Both explore the artist who redefined queer aesthetics at a time when homosexuality was illegal and full-frontal nudity censored.
‘Dreamlands’ • James Bidgood, early 1960s • Courtesy of the Estate of James Bidgood • Represented by CLAMP, New York.
“In Bidgood’s Rococo-inspired, resplendent compositions,” writes Hunter O’Hanian in his foreword to Dreamlands, “he created magical fairytale scenes, focusing on the beauty of men. Slim-waisted models in their early 20s, with obvious musculature, populated his images. Mostly staged in his tiny apartment, Bidgood captured imaginary settings fabricated from crepe paper, chicken wire, cellophane, and all things shiny and colorful.”
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- ‘Dreamlands’ • James Bidgood • Courtesy of the Estate of J. Bidgood represented by CLAMP, NY
It is only fitting that we get to celebrate the homoerotic imagery of James Bidgood during LGBTQ Pride Month. For the pulp and glamour aesthetic he brought to his theatrical fantasies (his ‘reveries’) and the role he played, along with other queer artists (Quaintance, Mizer, Tom of Finland…) in shaping our erotic lexicon. But it is no less appropriate to celebrate his legacy —the influence this visionary artist had on the likes of Pierre and Gilles, Steven Arnold and David LaChapelle. At a time when digital manipulation is king, and generative AI can create entire worlds out of nothing, Bidgood (and LaChapelle, on a much larger scale) tells us that painstakingly building physical sets and sewing costumes and manufacturing props may be a more authentic pathway, if arduous, to artistic truth.
David LaChapelle • “The Second Coming” • Los Angeles, 2025.
