WATCH: A photographer’s secret collection of homoerotic art offers a glimpse into the hidden past

Nearly a century ago, a man by the name of George Platt Lynes emerged as one of the most sought-after fashion photographers of his time.

His work was featured in the pages of magazines like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country, and thanks to a cover shoot with artist Lisa Fonssagrives, he is said to have lensed the world’s first-ever supermodel.

But, unknown to most of the world, Lynes was also responsible for an entirely separate body of work, photographs which, if made public, could get him thrown and jail—or worse.

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“It was hot and dangerous stuff,” one expert says in Hidden Master: The Legacy Of George Platt Lynes, a new documentary from acclaimed art director Sam Shahid which lifts the curtain on the photographer’s secret collection, much of which has remained behind closed doors until very recently.

While his commercial career was flourishing in the ’30s and ’40s, Lynes also pursued his passion for nude portraiture and often outright homoerotic art—photographs both radically intimate and explicit, and wildly ahead of their time.

In stark black-and-white, his private collection offered a survey of the male form, capturing devastatingly handsome men at their most vulnerable and powerful. Brimming with “emotion and authentic sexual energy,” these photographs are unmistakably a product of the queer male gaze.

After Lynes died of lung cancer in 1955—at the young age of 48—it was reported that he had destroyed these secret archives, possibly out fear that their discovery could ruin the careers and lives of his subjects. However, art historians only more recently became aware that he actually donated much of his work to his friend Dr. Alfred Kinsey, whose Kinsey Institute was doing groundbreaking research on homosexuality and gender.

Related:

PHOTOS: Discover the homoerotic work of vintage photographer George Platt Lynes

The out-gay photographer of the 1930s loved photographing naked men in very homoerotic poses.

The doc Hidden Master examines the scope and influence of this collection for the first time, cracking open the vault, so to speak. It’s work that, as the official synopsis puts it, “has only recently begun being fully discovered and appreciated for the revolution that it represents—a man capturing his fantasies as a gift, a window to a future his camera saw coming before anyone else.”

With an unprecedented look at Lynes’ stunning photography, and featuring interviews from experts and historians, the film also aims to provide a snapshot of the man behind the camera, a man who immersed himself in the American art world and threw many a party for the thought-leaders and culture-shifters of his time.

It’s through the eyes of George Platt Lynes—one of the first openly gay American artists—that we’re now gifted a look at a world gone by, albeit one that in many ways pointed to our future.

A little while back, we shared a brief teaser clip for the documentary as it played film festivals around the globe. But now, ahead of its wider release courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment, we are thrilled to share a first official trailer, which you can watch below.

Hidden Master: The Legacy Of George Platt Lynes arrives in select theaters—and will be available via Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV—beginning May 31.

Related:

Patric McCoy’s latest exhibit “take my picture” puts Black queer men in front of the camera

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but when it comes to Patric McCoy’s photos, they’re worth a lifetime.