Queer Kin: Histories of Subversive Love at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

In honor of Pride Month, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library presents Queer Kin: Histories of Subversive Love at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, the first exhibit in our new quarterly exhibition series. The display will pay homage to instances of LGBTQIA+ love and connection in the Clark Library collections. Queer Kin will feature rare books, drawings, correspondence, photographs, fine press books, screenprints, and ephemera which recognize a range of non-heteronormative and gender non-conforming relationships from the 18th century to the present. The show will display moments of absence and presence in the archive to demonstrate the ways queer connections are preserved or concealed in library collections. We will closely attend to Oscar Wilde’s romances with Lord Alfred Douglas and Robert Ross; queer couples as creative collaborators in the Aesthetic movement, like Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts; and the radical power of lesbian love in printed materials. Aside from the capaciousness of queer kinship in the Clark Library’s holdings, the library itself speaks to histories of queerness in 1920s Los Angeles. The exhibit will examine the relationship between William Andrews Clark, Jr., the library’s founder, and Harrison Post, his partner and assistant librarian, as seen in the nude paintings of Post adorning the vestibule ceiling. Ultimately, Queer Kin will urge visitors to critique conventional understandings of family and romance.

We invite you to an advance showing of Queer Kin. Exhibition curator, Mal Meisels (they/them), the Clark Library’s Instruction and Engagement Fellow, will give a presentation on the exhibit in the Drawing Room. They will discuss the exhibit’s inception and its objects, as well its relevance to contemporary LGBTQIA+ life in the United States. Following the talk, guests are invited to explore the exhibition and accompanying book displays in the North and South Book Rooms, and enjoy a light reception on the Front Terrace.

The exhibition will be on view until September 12, and will be open by appointment only. To schedule an appointment, please contact clarktours@humnet.ucla.edu.

The event is free to attend and will be held in-person at the Clark Library. Registration will close on Thursday, June 12. Walk-in registrants are welcome as space permits.

Image: Al. Székely, original watercolor for Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1963)