"The First Homosexuals" Unearths Seventy Years of Queer Identity Evolution

12 July 2025

Chicago’s Wrightwood 659 hosts a revelation in art history with “The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869–1939,” a meticulously curated exhibition that unpacks the transformation of same-sex desire from fluid acts to fixed identities. This sweeping display assembles more than 300 works by 125 artists across 40 countries, offering a rare and expansive window into a global queer past that once thrived beyond the binaries of modern sexuality.

Curated over eight years by art historian Jonathan D. Katz and associate curator Johnny Willis, the show centers on the pivotal moment when Karl Maria Kertbeny coined “homosexual” in Europe, a linguistic watershed that sealed desire as identity. Preceding this, sexual expression was varied, unconstrained, and implicitly understood across a spectrum. Through intricate paintings, intimate photographs, sculptures, and prints, the exhibition resurrects a period when sexuality was neither labeled nor limited, spotlighting moments of tenderness and desire before they were reframed by societal systems.

Visitors moving through Wrightwood’s architecturally striking Tadao Ando–designed space encounter works by cultural icons including Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin and overlooked creatives from Scandinavia, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Each piece confronts the viewer not only with aesthetic grace but also with historic courage. One room houses fragmentary yet profound representations: a serene bedroom scene implying intimacy, a clandestine same-sex wedding, and portraits of drag performers and gender-nonconforming figures from the late 1800s, all of which challenge assumptions about visibility and representation in queer history .

A special section explores the work of Elisàr von Kupffer, an artist who proclaimed everyone inherently homosexual through his spiritual movement of Klarismus. His paintings, lush and symbolic, posit a transcendence of gender binaries. Their inclusion, rarely seen in the U.S. until now, draws a poignant arc from early queer utopian visions to the harsh repression that followed under fascist regimes.

The exhibition also engages with the darker currents of history. It concludes with a sobering look at the 1933 Nazi-led assault on Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research, the epicenter of early gender affirmation and queer scholarship which was ransacked and its records destroyed. It underscores how the flourishing of queer expression was violently cut short and sets the broader narrative in stark context.

Securing such a display was no small feat. The organizers faced resistance from institutions wary of political backlash, with artwork from countries like Colombia, Russia, and India being withdrawn over fears of controversy. Yet Wrightwood, privately backed and independent, secured its status as the sole full venue willing to host the unabridged exhibition. It has since broken attendance records for the gallery, proving the demand for queer historical narratives remains strong.

“The First Homosexuals” is both a cultural archive and a mirror, reflecting back questions about how identity is formed, policed, and remembered. In an era where queer rights face renewed opposition, the exhibition’s depth and diversity affirm not only the resilience of these histories but also their relevance today. It resists simplistic stories and highlights nuance, reminding viewers that many paths of sexual and gender expression were deliberately erased but can and should be reclaimed.

Running through July 26 at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago, the exhibit stands as a courageous testament to creative defiance. It offers a vital reexamination of how art and language have shaped our understanding of who we are, a layered conversation between past and present that challenges us to rethink definitions of sexuality and identity.