Hidden Master: The Legacy Of George Platt Lynes

When it first came onto the scene, photography was an exciting new toy; then it was a practical means of capturing information. It took several decades for it to be considered art. A few key figures were crucial to the process – figures like Alfred Stieglitz, Julia Margaret Cameron and Ansel Adams, who established the terms of much photographic language still in use today. There was also a man whose work drew on the language of early Renaissance paintings in the way that it used light to outline the human form, and explored that in wholly new ways in its presentation of (mostly) male nudes. One can see its influence everywhere today – and yet because that man was openly gay as early as the 1930s, and because our society has always struggled with the semiotics of objectifying men, his name has been largely forgotten. It was George Platt Lynes.

Sam Shahid’s documentary is an effort to set this to rights. Though it begins with reference to Lynes destroying much of his early archive shortly before his death, plenty of work survives, and Shahid seems to have had his pick of it for the purposes of illustration. In the course of the film we will encounter the usual arguments about how one might distinguish art from pornography, but there is no need to find male bodies alluring to appreciate their beauty when seen through Lynes’ eyes. He shot them like architecture, clearly fascinated by the underlying structures of muscle and sinew. He focused on height, leanness, gymnastic strength, yet even his most extreme poses have a hint of sensuality about them. He had a gift for capturing expressions, taking shot after shot until he hit upon something with unique character. Though they are few in number, his portraits of women are also daring in that they use the same language, with not a hint of conventional femininity about them.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Lynes started out wanting to be a writer. Though some at first glance seem purely idealistic, there are stories in all his photographs, and there is thus an abundance of material for Shahid to work with. The film follows Lynes’ life course in a fairly straightforward manner, taking in the early sojourn to Paris where he hung out with Gertrude Stein, his decision to quit Yale in order to spend his time in the salons on New York City, and his meeting with long-term partner Monroe Wheeler. It covers the glory days when everyone who was anyone on the East Coast attended his parties, when he was slender and perpetually tanned and photographed by Man Ray, as well as his numerous polyamorous entanglements, his adventures on the ballet scene, the disastrous move to Hollywood that saw him shooting the stars whilst haemorrhaging money, and those last lonely years back in NYC as it all came crashing down.

To say that he was lonely then is not to say that he wasn’t loved. Shahid makes no effort to paper over his abysmal treatment of some of his lovers, but the supply never ran low. We also learn about his close bond with his brother Russell, who lived life just perfectly according to the heterosexual template of the time, and whose son speaks fondly of them both here. Shahid has also tracked down key figures like the painter Bernard Perlin, his longstanding correspondent and eventually his artistic executor, who still gets teary over him after 60 years. A representative of the Kinsey Institute discusses his friendship with its founder and their daring plan to smuggle his archive across State lines – along with the legend of the box that he sent with it, telling nobody what was inside.

Lynes isn’t always a likeable figure but his authenticity and boldness make him compelling. As with many influential artists, there’s a sense the he had anticipated the future and somehow lived within it despite his more primitive surroundings, giving him the power to produce images that belonged to another time. His visits to the YMCA to find models, and the sailors, hustlers and athletes whom he talked out of their clothes (and often, afterwards, into his bed) – these have become clichés, but Lynes’ images were the originals. Beside them we see his interracial images, taking on one of the US’ biggest taboos. They’re problematic to a degree, but in the ways that such photos, when taken by white people, often are today, rather than what one might expect in the mid-20th Century.

A thorough, well-told tale intertwined with many of the key social and artistic movements of that century – and dotted with its luminaries – Hidden Master brings Lynes back out into the light. He eases into place like a long-lost piece from a jigsaw puzzle. Through his pictures, the big picture comes to make more sense.

Reviewed on: 07 Jul 2025