Vintage gay couples

The Stonewall Uprising in June 1969 was a pivotal moment in the fight for LGBTQ rights.

Pictured, people take to the streets in 1970.

Members of the Jewish community pose for a photo at gay pride.

They demonstrated the power of the community.

London held its own march for the LGBTQ community in 1977.

A couple is pictured kissing in 1971.

This mom's sign reads, "My gay son is the greatest."

Their signs express their pride for their children.

Friends celebrate together.

In 1981, this couple was caught in a blissful embrace.

Here, four gay men dance in a San Francisco club in 1977.

Here, a group dances in 1989.

Here, a drag queen entertains guests in 1966.

An engaged couple is pictured in 1971.

Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage following a ruling in 2003.

Hundreds of photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries offer a glimpse at the life of gay men during a time when their love was illegal almost everywhere.

A beautiful group of photographs that spans a century (1850–1950) is part of a new book that offers a visual glimpse of what life may have been like for those men, who went against the law to find love in one another’s arms.

This one showed two soldiers in the 1940s, posing cheek-to-cheek, with an etching on the art deco glass frame that said, “Yours always.”

Thanks to the pair’s formidable research and passion, today their collection amounts to over 2,800 vintage photographs spanning from roughly 1850 to 1951, shot in Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Japan, Latvia, the UK and the USA.

The story of the collection is told by Hugh and Neal in the essay “An accidental collection”, included in their book, Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love 1850s-1950s, published by 5 Continents Editions.

Over the years, the pair studied the images, attempting to decode the signs of “one hundred years of social history”, and found some recurring symbols.

Flipping through the book, it wasn’t that I felt that I learned a great deal about being LGBTQ, but what gave me comfort was the feeling that we’re not going anywhere. Loving is available in five languages: French, English, Italian, German and Spanish.

Nini and Treadwell hope that the new exhibition—and shows like it in the future—will continue to spread the message that “love is love,” as Treadwell tells the Art Newspaper’s Karen Chernick.

“Love has been around forever,” he adds.

“Loving” is on view at the Musée Rath in Geneva, Switzerland, through September 24.

This article was originally published onVICE Italy.

Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell are Texan art collectors, who got “unofficially” married in 1992.

While the majority of the images hail from the United States and are of predominantly white men, there are images from Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Japan, Latvia, and the United Kingdom among the cache.

What do images of men in love during a time when it was illegal tell us? The identities of the photographers and subjects connected to most of the images are a mystery.

“The pictures adopt the same staging as for heterosexual couples: couples pose at the bow of a ship, on the branch of a tree, at the beach, in the forest and in bed, and they sometimes also simulate a wedding stance,” per a statement from the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire.

By 1902, Robert Faries had invented a rudimentary device to shoot self-portraits, but it doesn’t appear to have been used in many of these pictures. The answer, according to the collectors, is that couples would get help from friends and family. The men likely just “wanted to have something to remember themselves by,” as Treadwell tells Reuters’ Denis Balibouse and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber.

Now, for the first time, the book and exhibition mean that “these couples get to speak for themselves,” as Nini told CNN’s Oscar Holland in 2020.

So far, more than 4,000 such images—all taken between the 1850s and 1950s—have been found.

Now, 400 of these romantic snapshots are on display at the Musée Rath in Geneva, Switzerland, which hosts the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire’s temporary exhibitions. These old photos remind us that such cruel laws still exist, and give us a candid insight into hidden love from the past.