All of Me With All of You: LGBTQ+ Art Out of the Collection
Through September 14, 2025
Sponsors: Michelle Hatzopoulos & Evangeline Knell; Andrea & Neil Kreinik; Alicia L. Ruberti & Kathryn Kroleski; LGBT Network
By: Nina Chohan, Curatorial Intern
The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington has long been a champion of local artists. In recent years, it has expanded its commitment to inclusivity by spotlighting LGBTQ+ creators who have been historically underrepresented in art galleries and museums. The upcoming exhibition All of Me with All of You: LGBTQ+ Art Out of the Collection marks a milestone as the museum’s first comprehensive exploration of its collection through the lens of LGBTQ+ histories and identities. Organized by guest curator Victoria Munro, Executive Director of the Alice Austen House, the exhibition will traverse over 150 years of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper.
A highlight of the show is the inclusion of six photographs by the artist collective PaJaMa, composed of Paul Cadmus, Jared French, and Margaret French. PaJaMa (an acronym of their first names) was formed in 1937, during trips the trio made to the beaches of Fire Island in Long Island and their studios in New York City. Their photographs draw on themes of surrealism, often featuring themselves as well as people from their close circle of artists, writers, and dancers. They created intimate black-and-white images that captured the spirit of artistic and personal freedom that came with spending summers with the queer community of Fire Island. Their subjects appeared in togas, swimsuits, or nude, posed in classical or unusual compositions and set against environmentally tactile backgrounds that featured the vast ocean, sand dunes, tree stumps, seaweed washed ashore, rocks and other natural materials, blurring the lines between myth, fantasy, and autobiography.
Although PaJaMa’s photographs exude theatricality and formal precision, they were initially made for private enjoyment, passed among friends rather than displayed publicly. Cadmus once remarked, “We would go out late and take photographs when the light was best. They were just playthings. We would hand out these little photographs when we went out to dinner parties, like playing cards.” Since these photographs were not originally meant for public display, there is a sense of freedom of expression and unconstraint that captures the subjects at ease, interacting with close friends and lovers.
Art institutions have historically excluded queer artists or downplayed their identities. By contextualizing PaJaMa within this exhibition, The Heckscher Museum is helping to dismantle cultural stigma around LGBTQ+ art and artists. Furthermore, it aligns with the museum’s long standing support of local artists, which was first championed by Heckscher Museum Director Eva Gatling and her 1970s Artists of Suffolk County exhibition series. “It is the spirit of the Island that’s operative here,” Gatling said about the series. It is this spirit that continues to shine at the Heckscher with All of Me With All of You. By revisiting its collection with a focus on LGBTQ+ narratives, the museum not only rectifies historical oversights but also, with the inclusion of PaJaMa’s photographs among others, celebrates the legacy of queer artists working in Long Island’s cultural and physical landscapes.
Nina K. Chohan is currently working towards her Master’s in Art History and an Advance Certificate in Curatorial Studies at Hunter College, and has her Bachelor’s in Museum Studies from Arizona State University. A Long Island local, Chohan currently works at the Whitney Museum as a Visitor & Member Assistant; she has also worked as an Education and Visitor Services Assistant at the Parrish Art Museum, and volunteered as a Visitor Services Associate at the Nassau County Museum of Art.
(1) www.pineshistory.org/the-archives/art-history-paul-cadmus-jared-amp-margaret-french
