Basel Show Traces Homosexual Identity in Art from 1869 to 1939

The Kunstmuseum Basel presents 'The First Homosexuals: The Birth of New Identities 1869-1939', an exhibition examining how the term 'homosexual'—first printed in 1869 by Hungarian author Karl Maria Kertbeny in a letter to German lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs—sparked a new vocabulary for same-sex desire in art. Co-curator Len Schaller notes that the term emerged amid profound social upheaval in Europe. The show features around 80 works from 1869 to the outbreak of WWII, highlighting early visibility of same-sex desire and gender diversity. After a previous iteration at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago, the Basel edition focuses on Swiss artists, such as Paul Camenisch's 'Bathers in the Breggia Gorge' (1927), which more frankly addresses homosexual motifs compared to earlier works like Ludwig von Hofmann's 'Naked Fishermen and Boys on the Green Shore' (c. 1900) or Andreas Andersen's 'Interior with Hendrik Andersen and John Briggs Potter in Florence' (1894). The exhibition runs until 2 August.