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Miss Guy, Wigstock, Thompkins Square Park, New York City

Paula Gately Tillman

Miss Guy, Wigstock, Thompkins Square Park, New York City

1992

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Paula Gately Tillman

Miss Guy, Wigstock, Thompkins Square Park, New York City

1992

Physical Qualities Gelatin silver print, Sheet: 254 x 203 mm. (10 x 8 in.) Image: 184 x 126 mm. (7 1/4 x 4 15/16 in.)
Credit Line Alice and Franklin Cooley Fund
Object Number 2015.89
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Paula Gately Tillman photographed an eclectic array of personalities on the Atlanta and New York alternative scenes. Hope Nicholls (the front woman for Fetchin Bones) and Jayne County (the ground-breaking transgendered lead singer of Wayne County and the Electric Chairs) were punk rock pioneers. County was also an actor in Andy Warhol’s 1971 theatrical production Pork. Back-up singers for the band Blondie, sisters Tish and Snooky Bellomo established Manic Panic, the first New York punk boutique, in 1977. Gately Tillman had an early introduction to RuPaul through her friend Dick Richards, co-founder of the Atlanta-based Funtone Records label and one of the creators of the public access television program The American Music Show. She made several portraits of RuPaul, capturing his rise from an underground figure to full-fledged celebrity between 1986 and 1992. Even when focusing her lens on an unidentified performer at New York’s Wigstock drag festival, Gately Tillman captured the spirit of unbridled creativity that characterized this unique time in music, performance, and fashion—a period that was influenced by Warhol and overlapped with the last years of his life.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2015; the artist
Kristen Hileman, BMA, Contemporary Wing rotation, 30 September 2015 - 13 March 2016.

Explore the Collection Further

Paula Gately Tillman
RuPaul on the Set of The American Music Show, Atlanta
1992
Arthur Wesley Dow
City Island, New York
c. 1885-1897
Paula Gately Tillman
RuPaul outside his apartment building, from the “Bad Ass” photo shoot, Atlanta, 1986
1986
Paula Gately Tillman
Tish and Snooky, St. Mark’s Place, New York City
1986
Paula Gately Tillman
Hope Nicholls on the Set of The American Music Show, Atlanta
1992
Lawrence Nelson Wilbur
Peck's Slip, New York City
1940s
Paula Gately Tillman
Jayne County on the Set of The American Music Show, Atlanta
1988
John Mackie Falconer
The Earliest Art Center in New York City
1880
Dave Heath
New York City (two women)
c. 1960, printed 1962
Danny Lyon
IRT2, New York City
1979
Jerome Liebling
Butterfly Boy, New York City
1948