Bisexual/ Pansexual/ Omnisexual

Two Ladies of the Court in Saint Joan

By Baylee Woodley | March 25, 2024

Artist: Charles Ricketts
Media: Watercolour on board
Date & Location: 1924
Image Source: Picryl

Significance to Queer Art History

Charles Ricketts was a British painter, designer, and publisher. He met his partner Charles Shannon at the City and Guilds Technical Art School in south London in 1882 when they were both teenagers. They moved in together in 1888 and lived with each other for the rest of their lives. They also had sexual and emotional relationships with other men as well as women while living together.

Dear Old Chap… At each meal time they plonk down a plate of strawberries which make me think of you–no, this is not quite accurate. I really think of the strawberries. Only when they are done, I think of thee.”
– Charles Ricketts to Charles Shannon in a letter from Florence

Ricketts and Shannon were both individually practicing artists, but they also created the art magazine, The Dial, as well as Vale Press, together.

Ricketts and Shannon were responsible for the illustration and design of many of Oscar Wilde’s books and had a long-term friendship with Wilde who himself is an often-cited queer icon.

They also counted among their friends Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper. Bradley and Cooper were long-time lovers (living together for about 40 years) and collaborators. They were also (making things a bit more complicated) aunt and niece. Together the women published their writing (some inspired by the poems of Sappho of Lesbos) under the shared pseudonym, Michael Fields. Ricketts and Shannon designed some of their books. The couple also asked Ricketts and Shannon to help them find and furnish “a home for [their] marriage.”

The watercolour Two Ladies of the Court by Ricketts was painted as one of the plates for the book edition of the play Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw. Itself a scene of intimacy between two women, this watercolour is also for a play about one of the most famous figures from medieval history (Joan of Arc) known for defying binary constructions of gender. It also has a counterpart in a plate in the same book of two “gentlemen ushers of the court.”

These two ushers even have pointy shoes, which have a queer medieval history of their own, but that is for another post x

After the Ricketts and Shannon passed away within six years of each other, their friend, Edmund Dulac, painted them together as two monks in this double portrait.

A painting of two monks in a meadow with a pale blue sky behind them. Both have halos which are gold to match the gold arching frame above them that connects to the frame. They both face the viewer. Their arms touch in the middle suggesting their intimacy.

❦ Resources ❦
Charles Ricketts. Self-Portrait : Taken from the Letters & Journals of Charles Ricketts. Collected and compiled by Thomas Sturge Moore , edited by Cecil Lewis. London: P. Davies, 1939.

Matt Cook. Queer Domesticities : Homosexuality and Home Life in Twentieth-Century London. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Sarah Parker. “Poets and lovers: the two women who were Michael Field.” The Conversation. 31 January 2020. Accessed 25 March 2024.

Il Sodoma (1477-1549)

By Casey Hoke | August 28, 2017

Giovanni Bazzi, also known as Il Sodoma. (A mocking name aimed at Bazzi’s homosexuality that Bazzi later began to embrace) was a painter of the Italian renaissance, born in Savoy, Italy. He was influenced by the prior works of Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael in his historical, mythical, and religious frescoes.

Featured Artwork: Marriage of Alexander the Great and Roxana (1571)

Where can I find this artwork?: Fresco at Villa Farnesina in Rome
Significance to Queer Art History: Alexander the Great is featured in the middle, gazing at his soon to be wife, Roxana as she is undressed by cupids for their consummation of marriage. Meanwhile, on the right, a clothed Hephaestion (Alexander’s best man) leans upon the marriage god, Hymen. Hephaestion was a general in Alexander’s army along with being his intimate partner and personal body guard. The two were inseparable throughout life. This fresco by Il Sodoma, exemplifies Alexander the Great’s bisexuality through Hephaestion’s closeness to the marriage god. While not married by law, Alexander and Hephaestion’s closeness during the marriage of Roxana and Alexander remains.

Resources & further reading:

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Il Sodoma.” Encyclopædia Britannica. March 31, 2017. Accessed August 2017. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Il-Sodoma.

Saslow, James M. Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York, NY: Viking, 2000. 97-99.

Michael Page- Bisexual Pride Flag (1998)

By Casey Hoke | August 25, 2017

Michael Page is a Florida based bisexual activist, creator of BiCafe (closed) and BiNet USA volunteer.

Featured Artwork: Bisexual Pride Flag

Date and Location: December 5, 1998 in Florida, USA

Significance to Queer Art History: The Bisexual Pride flag was created by Michael Page and debuted on December 8, 1998 on BiCafe . com (now defunct.) Page wanted to create a prominent symbol for the bisexual community just as the gay pride (rainbow) flag was prominent to the gay community after its creation by Gilbert Baker in 1978. He chose the colors for the flag for the popular “Bi-Angles” symbol of triangles and combined them into a flag that used 40% pink (to represent homosexuality), 20% purple (to represent a combination of homosexuality and heterosexuality), and 40% blue (to represent heterosexuality).

The pantone color codes from Page are as follows: PMS 226, 258, and 286

Bi-Angles symbol that inspired Michael Page (Creator Unknown):

Resources & Further Reading:

Baxter-Williams, Libby. “Hoisting Our Colours: A Brief History of the Bisexual Pride Flag.” Biscuit. Accessed August 25, 2017. https://www.thisisbiscuit.co.uk/hoisting-our-colours-a-brief-history-of-the-bisexual-pride-flag/.

Ruocco, Caroline. “Mashable Publishes an Up-to-date Compilation of LGBT Flags and Symbols.” GLAAD. June 16, 2014. Accessed June 2017. https://www.glaad.org/blog/mashable-publishes-date-compilation-lgbt-flags-and-symbols.

Wong, Curtis M. “‘Celebrate Bisexuality Day’ Exists Because Of These Three LGBT Activists.” The Huffington Post. September 24, 2013. Accessed August 2017. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/celebrate-bisexuality-day_n_3977289.html.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

By Casey Hoke | July 25, 2017

Albrecht Dürer was a printmaker and painter from Nuremberg Germany. His prints are considered prolific to the German Renaissance. Dürer worked and traveled to Italy much during his studies of visual arts and spent time with a lifelong and rumored intimate partner, Willibald Prickheimer, a German lawyer and humanist author. This intimacy was documented through letters that also discussed Durer’s dual lust for German girls and soldiers. Dürer even created a charcoal portrait of Prickheimer with a quite blatant Greek quotation that roughly translates to: “With the cock in your asshole”

Featured Artwork: The Bath House

Date and location: 1496 in Germany

Media: Woodcut Print

Where can I see this artwork?: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (not currently on view)

Significance to Queer Art History:

Durer’s Bath House explores a homosocial environment of drinking, playing music, and flirting that illustrates Dürer’s experiences in bath houses and similar areas. The imagery proves to be homoerotic as well in placement of a phallic fountain at the crotch of the male figure on the left of the image.

Resources & Further Reading:

Saslow, James M. Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York, NY: Viking, 2000. 92-96.

Schulz, Matthias, and Spiegel Online. “The God of Colors: Researchers Shed New Light on Artist Albrecht Dürer.” SPIEGEL ONLINE. May 01, 2012. Accessed July 2017. http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/new-details-emerge-on-artist-duerer-ahead-of-exhibition-a-830282.html.

“Albrecht Dürer | The Bath House | The Met.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I.e. The Met Museum. Accessed July 2017. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/388481.

(1471-1528), Albrecht Dürer. “Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) – The Bath House.” Royal Collection Trust. July 12, 1495. Accessed July 2017. https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/800195/the-bath-house.

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

By Casey Hoke | March 30, 2017

Frida Kahlo, born in 1907, claimed she was born in 1910, the year that the Mexican revolution began. She was proud of Mexican culture and heritage. Thus, she showed this through her art and life in Mexico. Her works centered on her identity, passions, and pain. Kahlo suffered from polio as a child and later, almost died from a bus accident. She began her focus on painting while in a body cast during this time. As she worked through her life, more health complications came up for her, including miscarriages that resulted from the bus accident. This resulted in more artworks delving into her pain. Kahlo was noted as bisexual for her various lovers and love for women in her life. She was passionate about maintaining her gardens and her pets, including dogs, spider monkeys, birds, and even a deer. Perhaps one of Kahlo’s greatest passions in her life was fellow painter, Diego Rivera. While both Kahlo and Rivera had affairs and a tumultuous relationship, having married twice, they each were passionate about the other.

Featured Artwork: Two Nudes in the Forest (The Earth Itself)

Date and location: 1939 in Mexico

Media: Oil on metal

Significance to Queer Art History:
This painting was originally created as a gift for Kahlo’s intimate partner, Delores del Rio, who was a popular Mexican actress in the 1920s-30s.

Symbolism:
The two women symbolize feminine sexuality as well as Frida’s dual identities comforting one another as European (signified by the figure with light skin) and Mestiza.

The painting also contains a monkey (a common symbol in Frida’s paintings and life as she owned several spider monkeys.) Monkeys, however, are also common symbols for sin and sexual promiscuity.

Resources & Further Reading:

“Biography of Frida Kahlo.” Biography | Frida Kahlo. Accessed April 13, 2017. https://www.frida-kahlo-foundation.org/biography.html.

Saslow, James M. Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. New York, NY: Viking, 2000. 237-38

“Two Nudes in the Forest (The Earth Itself).” Frida Kahlo: Paintings, Biography, Quotes. Accessed April 13, 2017. https://www.fridakahlo.org/two-nudes-in-the-forest.jsp.