Fire Island Pines

Product Description

Growing up in the 1950s Tom Bianchi would head into downtown Chicago & pick up 25-cent physique" magazines at newsstands. In one such magazine he found a photograph of bodybuilder Glenn Bishop on Fire Isl&. " Fire Island sounded exotic perhaps a name made up by the photographer " he recalls in the preface to his latest monograph. "I had no idea it was a real place. Certainly I had no idea then that it was a place I would one day call home." In 1970 fresh out of law school Bianchi began traveling to New York & was invited to spend a weekend at Fire Island Pines where he encountered a community of gay men. Using an SX-70 Polaroid camera Bianchi documented his friends' lives in the Pines amassing an image archive of people parties & private moments. These images published here for the first time & accompanied by Bianchi's moving memoir of the era record the birth & development of a new culture. Soaked in sun sex camaraderie & reverie " Fire Island Pines "conjures a magical bygone era. Tom Bianchi was born & raised in the suburbs of Chicago & graduated from Northwestern University School of Law in 1970. He became a corporate attorney eventually working with Columbia Pictures in New York painting & drawing on weekends. His artwork came to the attention of Betty Parsons & Carol Dreyfuss & they gave him his first one-man painting show in 1980. In 1984 he was given his first solo museum exhibition at the Spoleto Festival. After Bianchi's partner died of AIDS in 1988 he turned his focus to photography producing " Out of the Studio " a candid portrayal of gay intimacy. Its success led to producing numerous monographs including " On the Couch " " Deep Sex" & " In Defense of Beauty.""