The incomparable Robert Richards, curator of Stroke

Two of my buddies (a friend recently replied to a text in which I used that word with a simple, sarcastic "buddy") and I met up at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in SoHo on Friday night to check out the opening reception for Robert W. Richards's highly anticipated new show, dedicated to the gay erotic art produced to adorn porn mags from the '50s until now. Stroke: From Under the Mattress to the Museum Walls is on view from now through May 25, 2014, and it's a must-see if you're intrigued by erotic art or even if you just fondly remember a time when, minus a man, your best bet at carnal gratification would have been with a non-judgmental glossy magazine.

Robert is himself an accomplished artist and illustrator, both for porn magazines and for non-porn commercial and fashion projects (his likenesses of great ladies like Lena Horne and Peggy Lee rival his aptitude for capturing curvy cocks and pouting prettyboys), so he's the man to wade through the Leslie-Lohman's vast archive and to solicit works from outside those holdings. The results are an unqualified success, wall-to-wall museum quality work that, seen in this context—as opposed to printed in a magazine marketed to help men get off—immediately asserts itself as art.

Love Richard A. Rosenfeld's blond bod-god on the right

Dirty drawings aren't art? Hey, the David has a penis, too, dude.

This show includes 25 classic illustrators' work, everyone from the obvious (Tom of Finland, Colt and Quaintance) to the offbeat (ever seen any of Michael Kirwan's viscerally skanky scenes?) to the lushly beautiful (Mel Odom's Deco dicks, Antonio's fashiony fellas). 

Antonio's career and life were cut short by AIDS, but he was nonetheless an influential fashion illustrator.

The fact that some of this work exists at all is a minor miracle. It was largely completed on a work-for-hire basis, paid for by the magazines and then subject to being lost in shipping, discarded by the embarrassed survivors when artists and/or collectors passed away or otherwise neglected. This stuff was not treated like art for good long while after its creation. Even today, I would wager a lot of these priceless pieces wouldn't sell for huge amounts of money, because as much as many gay men love them, guys are shy about presenting a huge representation of oral sex or fisting on their living-room wall.

Odom to boy

For me, highlights of the show include the exhibition's dazzlingly sexy illustration by Antonio depicting an Asian beauty with puckered lips, all of Odom's lovely work, which is both pleasing to the eye and horny-making (a real trick to accomplish) and the thrill of seeing in person the work of my favorite gay-porn artist, the late "Harry Bush."

Bush's realistic (well, he was subject to flights of fancy when sketching fannies) images of young, sex-crazed men—often reminiscent of famous male celebrities of the '70s and '80s—have an extra charge for me. They seem so clearly to be personal as well as professional, which is why a snippy letter from an irate porn-mag editor that's included in the exhibition really made me laugh. The editor was apoplectic over Bush's womanly butts. His complaint is in print, but that sibilant "S" comes through loud and clear:

No ifs, no ands...less butt?

The show is hot as hell, but also an amazing catalog of illustration art. There's much to be learned here, and not all of it involves how best to get that roaming motorcycle gang to ejaculate.

Great seeing Robert after working with him at the mags 20 years ago!