Charles
William Leslie (born June 7,1933) is an American art collector, gay rights activist and founder of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art.Partner Fritz Lohman
Queer Places:
131 Prince St, New York, NY 10012
Charles
William Leslie (born June 7,1933) is an American art collector, gay rights activist and founder of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art.
Charles William Leslie was born on June 7th,1933 and raised in Deadwood South Dakota. After high school graduation he went to the The Pasadena Playhouse Collage of Theater Arts in 1951. After two years his studies were interrupted by being drafted into the United States Army. As a solider he served in the US occupation Army in Germany assigned to the allied headquarters command in Heidelberg where he spent another two years. In Heidelberg, he first met with the works of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld.
Having become deeply engaged in all things European, he mustered out in Germany and auditioned for the Lotte Goslar Mime Ensemble which was currently in Amsterdam. Using Amsterdam as their headquarters the company toured Europe for fourteen months, taking him to Sweden, Denmark, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. When the tour ended he took advantage of a US G.I. Bill program and entered the Sorbonne, University of Paris, where he remained for two years, apart from Paris and Amsterdam he lived for significant periods in Venice, Rome and London. He traveled broadly in Europe and made a memorable visit to Morocco in 1956. Upon returning to the United States he resumed work in the theater. He joined the touring production of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer play.
In 1962 in New York City, he met his life partner Fritz Lohman, an internationally known interior designer. They were introduced to each other at a brunch with friends. Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman, held their first homoerotic art show in their SoHo loft in May of 1969. Since then their loft is called "Phallus Palace". Together, they created the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation. Which was ultimately proclaimed a museum by the regents of the state of New York.
Charles and Fritz, 1970s.
During the 1970s, Leslie and Lohman waged a legal battle with the city to rezone 12 commercial blocks to residential. In the end, their efforts resulted in 48 square blocks being rezoned into what is known today as SoHo. At the same time, they joined the efforts to save the district’s historic cast-iron buildings, which resulted in the designation of the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1973. “We fought an aggressive battle with the Landmarks Preservation Commission to declare SoHo a landmark because of its amazing assemblage of cast-iron buildings,’’ Leslie said. The couple’s best known legacy is the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (formerly the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art), which had its origins in their SoHo loft at 131 Prince Street, 4R. "When we first set up house, we became aware that many great artists were gay … We noticed that a lot of them had amazing works of erotica and political and social imagery that resonated with the gay community." Charles Leslie, 2019.
They decided to exhibit gay-themed works, which most art galleries deemed too controversial at the time, in their home in 1969 and 1970. The turnout exceeded expectations when hundreds of people came. Leslie and Lohman soon opened a gallery on Broome Street, which closed in 1981.
In 1987, they co-founded the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation, a non-profit organization which has grown exponentially ever since, and opened the Leslie-Lohman Gallery in a building next door. The gallery moved to its current location at 26 Wooster Street in 2006, was later renamed the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, and is now the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art. Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art is the first and only dedicated LGBTQ art museum in the world with a mission to exhibit and preserve LGBTQ art, and foster the artists who create it. It has a collection of over 30,000 objects and offers several major exhibitions and events annually. Co-founders , Charles W. Leslie and Fritz Lohman, have supported gay and lesbian artists for over 30 years. The Museum embraces the rich creative history of the LGBTQ art community by educating, informing, inspiring, entertaining, and challenging all who enter its doors.
"Growing up gay in god-bitten America honed my sense of social justice to razor sharp." Charles and Fritz were always politically involved with the gay rights movement and with Anti-Vietnam war activities. Charles still feels a little guilty about getting Fritz and himself arrested on numerous occasions. His sense of justice has resulted in supporting the ACLU, Amnesty international, Lambda Legal, to name just a few, thus helping organizations to continue their work and impact the legislative process. In the arts the couple was given awards for supporting various gay causes like All Out Arts and the Tom of Finland Foundation. In 2006 Out Magazine identified Charles and Fritz as part of their Out 100 list for 'having helped shape gay culture'.
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