A trope about the artist’s gaze suggests the model is merely an object. But in front of a camera, Charles “Chuck” Howard was a force. “Chuck: Photographs by George Platt Lynes” at Childs Gallery provides an intimate peek into Lynes’s work with a favorite model.
Lynes, who died at 48 in 1955, was known for his often surreal, always formalist fashion and celebrity photography for Vogue. He photographed dancers from Lincoln Kirstein’s American Ballet Company, now the New York City Ballet.
His place in LGBTQ history and stamp on mid-20th-century modernism is prompting a re-examination of his life and work. He was a gay man in an accepting cultural community in pre-Stonewall-era New York, as detailed in “George Platt Lynes: The Daring Eye,” Allen Ellenzweig’s 2021 biography from Oxford University Press.
This year, filmmaker Sam Shahid’s documentary “Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes” explores the photographer’s male nudes — a collection Lynes donated to sex researcher Alfred Kinsey’s Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. “Body Language,” a new MIT Press book by Nick Mauss and Dr. Angela Miller, considers his work as a precedent to social media’s performance for the camera.
Howard, Lynes’s lover and model from 1948 to 1951, had chemistry with the camera, and with artists. He also modeled for painters Paul Cadmus and Jared French. Twenty years Lynes’s junior, Howard later worked as a designer for Bill Blass and Anne Klein. He died in 2002 at 75.
A glamorously handsome man with a boyish grin, Howard brought nuanced energy to each photo. In a portrait with Lynes, he’s the picture of an all-American boy, his face animated and open. Then, shirtless on the floor of a porch in “[Chuck Howard Sitting],” he plays the role of an erotic object who is nonetheless in full command.
The artist and model appear to have been in creative sync. In “[Chuck Howard Laying Down with Arrow],” it’s as if they’re solving a problem — how to get all the angles right. In photos featuring a Christmas tree, Howard poses first in shadowy profile, and then as if ensnared by glowing tinsel.
The holiday photos are goofy failures; the tree dominates the model. But they capture a spirit of playfulness and experimentation. Lynes’s artist partnership with Howard wasn’t about power; it was about electric collaboration.
CHUCK: PHOTOGRAPHS BY GEORGE PLATT LYNES
At Childs Gallery, 168 Newbury St., through Feb. 3. 617-266-1108, www.childsgallery.com
Cate McQuaid can be reached at catemcquaid@gmail.com. Follow her on Instagram @cate.mcquaid.
