Celebrating Pride: A Donation of Gay Literature to Concordia Library

In 2017, the Concordia Library was gifted a personal collection of books related to gay culture, with a particular focus on gay men. In celebration of Pride month, this exhibition features just a few of the more than 300 gifted books.

The exhibition showcases art and photography books, biographies, memoirs, literary and historical works by and about gay artists and authors. Books in the collection reflect changing attitudes over the last century both within and without the gay community.

The exhibition is arranged chronologically by subject: books about the arts in Paris and Berlin before the First World War; the careers of English authors W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, and Stephen Spender, who explored life in 1930s Berlin before living in the United States; the works of American artists Paul Cadmus and Jared French beginning in the 1930s; American gay-themed novels from the 1950s and later; and stylized homoerotic drawings from the 1960s onwards. Photography celebrating the male figure is represented by George Platt Lynes' and Robert Mapplethorpe’s early exhibition catalogues, as well as works by other pioneering photographers.

This exhibition is curated by Karen Jensen, Head of Cataloguing and Collection Maintenance, and Christopher Carr, Special Materials Cataloguing Librarian at Concordia University Library. The exhibition will be on display in the Webster Library vitrines on LB-2 from June 3 to September 5, 2024.