Perkins Harnly is a forgotten outsider artist whose work is held but not displayed at the Met, the New York Public Library, and the Smithsonian. A self-taught artist with a wonderful feel for Victorian/Edwardian maximalist decor and clothing is now featured in a brand new book just out: The Emphatically Queer Career of Artist Perkins Harnly .
The pieces he produced are extraordinary. On the surface, they are whimsical, filled with color and overstuffed ormolu. Still, a closer viewing–as done by his biographer, the art historian Sarah Burns–reveals coded imagery and signifiers of queer life during that period. Harnly uses Victoriana to represent notions of queerness and slyly paints himself in drag as every incarnation of a Gilded Age lady-of leisure.
Hanly crossed paths with a staggering array of famous and infamous personalities; he stole a box of bon-bons from Sarah Bernhardt; was friends with Paul Swan, a.k.a. “The Most Beautiful Man in the World,” who made women swoon when he danced in his tiny leopard-skin tunic. Was the frequent houseguest of Rose O’Neill, the free-living, gin-drinking artist who invented the Kewpie Doll. 
Hobnobbed with Elsie de Wolfe, the celebrity decorator who invented the blue rinse and dyed her poodles to match. And was a dedicated correspondent of Alexander King, the gabby Viennese morphine addict whose circle included William Seabrook, author and occasional cannibal responsible for introducing Americans, for better or worse, to the zombie.
Harnley most productive period was during the 1930s-40s when the WPA commissioned him to document “American Interiors.” After that, he settled in Los Angeles and worked in a large cafeteria where few of his co-workers knew about his art. However, he did appear on the Johnny Carson show in the early 1980s as a local character.
Harnly’s life is equally irresistible, Burns utilizes Harnly’s extensive correspondence to tell his story and show readers the joyful exuberance of queer lives during the 1920s to 1970s.
The Emphatically Queer Career of Artist Perkins Harnly
and His Bohemian Friends : Sarah Burns (Author)
Publisher: Process
Labels: 2021, artist, book, Perkins Hanley, Process Publishers, Sarah Biurns
