In September 2011 I went to the
annual sale put on by the Friends
of the San Francisco Public Library.
I usually avoid this, as some of the book buying and hoarding public can
be pretty vicious. Some volunteers
advised to come on the last day when things would be more mellow. They were correct, by Sunday everything was
priced at one dollar and there were still plenty of books. There was a crowd,
but in general it wasn’t too crazy. And
I did find some more atlases for further adventures in map art.
I think the real reason
I was meant to go to the book sale was to find this one overlooked book titled The
Art of Wayne Quinn. The book was published in 1977. It was from a San Francisco publisher house
called New Glide Publications. Online
there is no reference to New Glide except in listings for books for sale – all
published in the 1970’s. Probably their
most notable book was Word is Out, a
companion book to the documentary of the same name.
The Art of Wayne Quinn has 95 pages of excerpts from the artist’s
journal with color images of about 20 oil paintings, including detailed
images. Quinn was a realist. The
clothing and hairstyles in some the portraits are clearly from the 1970’s
though there is an out-of-time quality to much of his work. Clearly ignoring many of his art
contemporaries, Quinn worked in a style that seems more in place among
America’s Regionalist Artists of the 1930’s.
It’s work that brings to mind such artists as Andrew Wyeth and Grant
Wood. One can imagine if Grant Wood had
lived to a ripe old age and finally fled Iowa for San Francisco, these would
have been the sort of paintings he would have been doing in the 1960’s and
1970’s.
Finding the book, made
me curious to learn more about Wayne Quinn.
The book itself offered little biographical information other than that
he was born in 1941 and raised in Upstate New York and had lived in San Francisco
since 1963. 35 years after the book was
published, the internet would provide me with some answers. Wayne Quinn was nearly nowhere to be found
except for this one brief blog posting.
Considering Wayne Quinn
was nowhere to be found online, lived in San Francisco, and was born in 1941, I
assumed the worst. I found Quinn’s 1987 obituary
from the Bay Area Reporter on the GLBT Historical Society’s database. The obituary was brief with few details. Two of his friends have recently added a few
remembrances of Quinn.
Further searching on his
full name, Wayne Douglas Quinn, these items online:
- A reference
to an honorable mention award he won at an art show in Palm Beach in
1973.
- I did find reference
to another book of his work called Fourteen
Line Drawings published in 1973.
- He also did a painting of Mt.
Sutro.
- His work was shown at the Jehu-Wong
Gallery. The Upper Market gallery
operated from 1971-83. Some
documents from the gallery as well as two of Quinn’s paintings are listed
in the Smithsonian’s archives of American Art.
- One of his paintings is at Cornell
University’s Johnson Museum of Art.
All said there was not
very much information out there. If you
come across this blog entry and have things to share about Wayne Quinn, please
let me know. The book was a real find,
and I’d like the opportunity to preserve Wayne Quinn’s memory. He is an artist who should not be forgotten.
Update June 2017:
Thank to a commenter on this post I discovered and just
finished reading Mark Abramson’s book Sex, Drugs & Disco. In 2015 Abramson published his diary
documenting his wild life in San Francisco during the late 1970s. Mark was an admirer and eventually became
friends with Wayne Quinn mentioning him a number of times in the diary. He even refers to the Wayne Quinn book that
started this blog post. Mark modeled for a nude sculpture Wayne did. There is
also a 1979 photo of Mark at an opening of Wayne Quinn’s work at the Tyson
Gallery in San Francisco. He mentions
meeting the collector who bought the sculpture and says:
“I could tell right away that he was disappointed to see me
in the flesh. He probably had fantasies
about that body on the statue he bought, and I didn’t match them at all. I wonder what he’ll do with it now. It must have cost him a lot of money. Sorry.”
I really want to see a photo of that sculpture, where is it
now?
Mark mentions further modeling for Wayne Quinn. The diary also mentions gallery shows in New
York as well as Wayne’s work appearing in Architectural Digest in 1979 (I plan
to peruse some back issues at the library). I am glad Sex, Drugs & Disco is out there, it’s a fascinating read, plus
offers a few more, albeit brief, glimpses into Wayne Quinn’s life.
Update September 2017:
A reader named Alan shared an
image of this Wayne Quinn painting he owns.
It is signed and dated 1965 and appears to be in its original
frame. This was likely a very personal
work by the artist. Alan told me that
attached to the back of the painting is a small plastic bag with a lock of red
hair. Will we ever know the identity of
this handsome red head?
Alan inherited the painting
from a friend, who said told Alan had bought it at a sidewalk sale directly from
the artist. The idea that Wayne had needed to sell this work on the street just makes me terribly sad.
Update September 2019:
A new book titled Queer Holdings: A Survey of the Leslie-Lohman Museum Collection is available from the University of Chicago Press. The book features one image of a Wayne Quinn painting. The book does not include any additional details about Quinn or his work. The museum's database does not include any images or Quinn's work, including the one featured in the book as of September 2019.
Update June 2026
A new website is available where you can submit your stories and other details about Wayne Quinn and his work.
Regarding Purchasing and Selling
I sometimes receive inquiries and comments about selling Wayne Quinn’s artwork. I am not an art dealer nor an appraiser and have no thoughts on the monetary value of his work and venues where it would be appropriate to sell his work. I recommend seeking a qualified art appraiser, perhaps through your local auction house.
If you are selling Wayne’s art that is on an auction house website or online platform (e.g., eBay), feel free to email me the link via my website (tofuart.com). You also can email your contact information if you would like me to share it with any collectors who reach out to me looking for Wayne's work.
(Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any information or claims made in any auction/sale link about Wayne Quinn's work).
