Join us for a special evening with Alice T. Friedman, as she presents Queer Moderns, a beautiful exploration of the queer avant-garde of the 1920s and ’30s in New York, Paris, and Venice. There will be a discussion and Q&A with host Dr. Joshua Mardell, an architectural historian and a lecturer at the Royal College of Art.
"A vibrant portrait of queer bohemia. . . . Friedman’s appreciative biography vividly conveys the spirited ambience of the interracial, international community of queer outsiders and intellectuals among whom, for his short life, Ewing thrived."—(Kirkus Reviews)
About the Book
Through the life and lens of Max Ewing (1903–1934)—a young musician, photographer, and man-about-town who, although virtually unknown today, moved in extraordinary circles. In his photographs and letters, we meet the rising stars of modern art, music, dance, and literature and enter a world of interracial friendship, “queer space,” and experimentation that shone brightly before being swept away by the Depression. It is a remarkable story that reveals that the history of modernism is more queer and more Black than previously recognized.
"Ewing’s ambition, the glamorous photographic record, and his name-dropping letters make for a winning combination. . . . Queer Moderns is lively and well written, a sympathetic portrait of a needy dilettante who strove brightly until his tragic emotional crash."—(Trevor Fairbrother, The Arts Fuse)
"Friedman skillfully illuminates a world usually hidden behind a curtain of societal restrictions. This remarkable book will be a welcome addition to LGBTQIA+ and art history collections."—(Library Journal)
About the Author: Alice T. Friedman
Alice T. Friedman is the Grace Slack McNeil Professor Emerita of American Art at Wellesley College and founding codirector of its Architecture Program. Her books include American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture and Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Cultural History.
"[a] sumptuous and sensitive narrative of Ewing and his cohort. Ms. Friedman expertly demonstrates that modernism, as Ewing encountered it, was everywhere — not just in high art."—(Carl Rollyson, New York Sun)
About the Host: Dr. Joshua Mardell
Dr. Joshua Mardell, FSA, is an architectural historian and a lecturer at the Royal College of Art. With Adam Nathaniel Furman he edited Queer Spaces: an Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places & Stories (RIBA, 2022). He is currently writing an Anglo-American study about women preservation activists in the mid-C20 and is one of the editors of the Journal of Architecture.
- Doors open at 19:00
- Discussion & Q&A from 19:10 - 20:00
- Signings and social 20:00-21:00