Beschreibung:

FORSTER (E.M) – GEORGE PLATT LYNESGroup of three portrait photographs of E.M. Forster, shown standing full-length or seated on a wooden bench, formally dressed in a pin-stripe suit and tie, two dated on reverse by Forster ("1947" and "1947 with Bob" [the last two words deleted]), another with inscription in black ink ("Taken on the first trip/ much love/ Lincoln [Kirstein] & Fidelma [Cadmus]/ 1971. January"), gelatin silver prints, photographer's '145 East 52 Street New York' stamp on reverse, 230 x 190mm., [1949]Footnotes'LIKE AN ACTOR WAITING IN THE WINGS': PORTRAITS OF FORSTER BY THE RENOWNED NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHER GEORGE PLATT LYNES
Forster (and indeed Lincoln Kirstein) has erroneously dated these photographs to his first trip to New York and Washington from April to July 1947. However, other photographs from the same sitting depict him with Bob Buckingham, who accompanied him on a brief trip to New York in May 1949, and was not with him on the earlier occasion. They were taken on the afternoon of 1 June 1949 in the austere setting of George Platt Lynes' studio and have been seen an important moment in the recording of gay relationships (see Wendy Moffat, 'Queer Patrimony: George Platt Lynes's Portraits of E.M. Forster', The Yale University Library Gazette, Vol.82, no.3/4, April 2008, pp.123-140). 'In these dramatic beautifully lit photographs' she writes, 'Lynes manages to make both his subjects their most glamorous selves, and their essential selves... Though notoriously shy, Forster was made comfortable both by Lynes' self-effacing working method, and by Lynes' bona fides as a lover and close friend of several of Forster's closest American friends... Lynes' physical beauty and his extraordinary charm disarmed many of his photographic subjects... His studio embodied a stylized artificiality... famous for his theatrical lighting arrangements and innovative fashion photography' (Moffat, p.129-134).
In our photograph, Forster stands at the edge of the composition, the only photograph from the session in which Forster looks directly at the camera. Moffat believes that it was taken surreptitiously, and that Forster did not see a print of it – something which may be borne out by the fact it was presented to Furbank after Forster's death by the impresario and philanthropist Lincoln Kirstein and is not annotated by Forster: '...alone, resolute... It captures his owlishness and his vulnerability... The Lynes portrait of Forster – shown to the fewest people – goes the furthest in capturing Forster's queerness' (Moffat, p.136). Towards the end of his life, Lynes sold it with a batch of his most explicit homoerotic nudes to the sexologist Alfred Kinsey for research purposes. The present trio of photographs derive from the collection of Forster's biographer, P.N. Furbank, the standing photograph published in Wendy Moffat, E.M. Forster: A New Life, London, 2010.
Provenance: P.N. ('Nick') Furbank (1920-2014); his friend and executor Dr W.R. Owens, the present owner (see adjacent lots).