Flavia Rando: Lesbian Artist, Activist, and Educator Reflects on a Life of Resistance

In its 2026 Pride Month series, Hyperallergic interviews Flavia Rando, a Brooklyn-based lesbian artist and activist. Rando came out in 1961 and was active in both the Gay Liberation Front and Radicalesbians. She founded a photo research company and participated in the first art exhibition with 'lesbian' in the title, even wheat-pasting lesbian art around Midtown Manhattan. Later, she taught women's and gender studies and art history in New York City. In 2019, she co-curated an exhibit at the New-York Historical Society to honor the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. Rando studied under Ad Reinhardt and Burgoyne Diller at Brooklyn College and launched the Lesbian Studies Institute at the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 2011. The interview covers her family background, early art, activism, and a 1976 incident at Mother Courage Restaurant involving her artwork.