AFTER DARK/SUMMER 2026 Auction Highlights
AFTER DARK/SUMMER 2026 Auction Highlights
Presenting a Series of Highlights from the Catalog
Lot 1: Raymond Han(American, 1931-2017). Untitled (Composite of the artist's partner, nude and clothed). Oil on canvas. Estimated at $3,000 - $5,000.
The first of our highlights from the catalog is this exceptional painting by the Korean-Hawaiian artist, Raymond Han. Han was a prolific portrait painter, with his most frequent muse being his husband, the New York City Opera Impresario, Paul Kellogg. In this painting, Han depicts his husband in tableau, playing both roles within an interior scene, set within the couple’s familiar home and studio in Cooperstown. The work is an excellent example of Han’s portraiture, featuring his distinctive pale color palette and academic rendering style, honed through his years at the Honolulu Academy of Art and the Art Students League in New York.
Lot 3: Paul Cadmus (American, 1904-1999). Self-Portrait with Model, Jon, 1972. Conté crayon on gray canson paper. Estimated at $8,000 - $12,000.
Lot 3 is an original Paul Cadmus drawing with excellent provenance and exhibition history. This conté drawing, originally acquired from the artist by Midtown Galleries, was a part of the 1981 touring exhibition, Paul Cadmus: Yesterday and Today. The work depicts Cadmus in the midst of drawing his partner, Jon Anderson, and the artist’s characteristic hatching and rendering of musculature is on full display here. This piece was a study for an egg tempera painting of the same name, now featured in the Catalog of American Portraits at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
Lot 4: Cornelius McCarthy (British, 1935-2009). Francis, 1991. Gouache on paper. Estimated at $1,200-$1,800.
We’re very excited to present another impressive gouache painting by the acclaimed East End artist, Cornelius McCarthy. This painting, entitled Francis, demonstrates the artist’s familiar modernist rendering style applied to an attractive male figure. Stylistically, the artist was influenced by the works of Keith Vaughan and Picasso through his own experience at the now-famous Whitechapel Gallery. While McCarthy’s expert use of light and color is comparable to the works of other modernists, his paintings of lounging young men have an intimate, desirous quality that is wholly unique.
These three drawings from the portfolio of the famous artist and poet Joe Brainard showcase the artist’s keen attention to the body. Brainard appreciates every element of the male form in these drawings, and his particular eye for the features of men is perhaps best illustrated in the following quote from his memoir:
"I remember navels. Torso muscles. Hands. Arms with large veins. Small feet. (I like small feet.) And muscular legs."
—Joe Brainard, I Remember, 2017, p. 41.
The diplomat-turned-artist Samir Sobhy was known for both his art of the male form and his contributions to African contemporary art. Sobhy was a frequent contributor to shows at the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation, and he was a founding member of the first art biennale in the African continent, Dak’ArtBiennale de l'Art Africain Contemporain. Sobhy engaged with the male form through a variety of themes, from erotic scenes to nude explorations of Egyptian kings and West African male sorcerers.
The two works featured in our latest catalog are deftly executed oil paintings applied to gessoed issues of a 1995 Senegalese newspaper. These paintings demonstrate Sobhy’s inclination towards vibrant colors and unconventional mediums, while also showcasing the artist’s thematic interest in same-sex desire and eroticism as its own form of sorcery.
Lot 41: Lloyd Lozes Goff (American, 1917-1982).Untitled (Enlistment Scene), 1952. Graphite on paper. Estimated at $300 - $500.
Lloyd Lozes Goff was a prominent figure within the Dallas art scene, and a close friend of many gay WPA artists, including Paul Cadmus and Jared French. While Goff’s traditional western art is quite well known, his homoerotic works have not seen the same public recognition. Closer to the end of his life, in the mid-late 1970s, Goff began to produce homoerotic illustrations under the pseudonym, "Jack Koff", although record of such works has only been found within the artist’s estate.
The illustration of Goff’s showcased in our catalog appears to be a study for a larger mural. Enlistment Scenes were a frequently used subject for WPA artists to explore gay themes and depict the male body without incurring immediate censorship. This work is a rare and particularly early example of discrete gay subject matter, and takes clear influence from Cadmus’ own enlistment murals.
Browse the catalog to find these highlights and other works that showcase the beauty of the male form. There’s still some time to register, request condition reports, or place pre-bids on any lots you’re interested in for our upcoming Thursday night auction!
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