An intimate look at a pioneering, openly gay artist, who took radically explicit photographs of the male nude. | dG1fQTg4d3NWeWZWOXc
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 [VIDEO PLAYBACK]
00:02 - You didn't really often see photographs of the male nude
00:05 from the 1930s.
00:08 - He created magic with his camera.
00:11 - George Pett Lyons isn't a household name.
00:14 - He became the most important fashion photographer in New
00:16 York.
00:17 He became the top of the game.
00:19 - An artist who should be in the canon, but is not.
00:23 - He is creating a world that looks
00:25 like the world of nobody else.
00:28 [END PLAYBACK]
00:30 - Why did we lose track of George Platt Lyons?
00:33 - George connected with the literary and art
00:39 world in New York.
00:40 - A circle of people who were central to the cultural life
00:45 of their time.
00:46 - George was famous for giving a lot of parties.
00:49 - He was an extremely luxurious man.
00:52 - He was able to get men who didn't
00:54 want to remove their clothes to remove their clothes.
00:58 - The nudes were an essential part of his work.
01:01 They were the heart.
01:02 - There is a lot of emotion.
01:07 There's a lot of authentic sexual energy.
01:11 - That was his art, and he wasn't
01:13 able to practice it legally.
01:16 - One could be jailed for this material.
01:22 - It was illegal to put the work in an envelope
01:25 and send it across state lines.
01:27 - It was hot and dangerous stuff.
01:31 - This is all that Platt Lyons prints.
01:36 - His legacy was sleeping.
01:39 - George Platt Lyons, perhaps now,
01:40 is on the radar more than ever.
01:43 - We see this world that's gone, that's lost,
01:48 but we see it through George's eyes.
01:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:55 [BELL CHIMES]
01:58 (click)
02:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]