Hidden in Plain Sight: The Queer Life and Legacy of Charles Demuth
In honor of LGBTQ+ History Month in October, Lancaster Pride is highlighting local, national, and international figures whose legacies shaped both art and LGBTQ+ visibility. One such figure is Charles Demuth, a modernist painter whose quiet queerness echoes through our city’s history.
Charles Demuth
Self-Portrait, 1907
The Artist of East King Street
There’s a charming building on 120 East King Street where the legacy of Charles E Demuth can be found. Demuth, an artist that resided in our very own Lancaster city, is known best for being a pioneer of American Modernism (Demuth Foundation, 2025). However, growing up in the 20th century with his parents Augusta and Ferdinand, he offers our community so much more than his art legacy. As a queer artist who is not renowned for his LGBTQIA+ identity, his life offers a glimpse of history that should not be ignored or erased.
Augusta and Ferdinand raised Charles in a supportive manner, embracing his love of art and sending him for art lessons with Martha Bowman (Demuth Foundation, 2025). His home he lovingly referred to as a “chateau,” and inspirations such as his mother’s garden are shown in his work today (2025).
Having a supportive family helped ensure his artistic journey - he studied at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and did some traveling to Paris, London, and New York, meeting with artists and writers like Picasso, O’Keefe, and Hemingway (2025). He ultimately traveled less the last ten years of his life due to facing diabetes, which he unfortunately passed away with complications at the age of 51 (2025).
A Hidden Chapter: Demuth’s Queer Identity
This information, while important details of his life, does not give us a glimpse into his relationships and love life. It does not mention his gay identity and how that impacted his family, art, traveling, and health complications. We have yet to understand how it weighed on his heart, what he thought about visibility and queerness, or the struggles he was faced with as a gay man. In “The Queer Life of Charles Demuth” by Susan Ferentinos, it discusses the time being more about the “behavior” of same sex attraction and less of an identity (Ferentinos, 2023).
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, there was a social movement to eradicate the visibility of “others”, those who did not fit into what a wealthy, white, straight cis-person was. However, according to Ferentinos, this did not impact wealthy white people in communities: they did not face the same persecution for their identity as those who had various marginalized identities (2023). In medical literature, only poor, foreign, and BIPOC individuals were the homosexual threat among society.
Demuth was one of these wealthy, independent and white members of society who were not under social scrutiny; however, he still was not forthcoming about his sexuality in a way that we know of his experience today. His travels and education show that he had an affinity for larger cities, where there is evidence of queer spaces accessible during this time. He lived in a time period that condemned LGBTQIA+ folx but also could slide into spaces where there potentially was no hate-filled scrutiny because of his identity. Truly, we do not know, but it does raise the question on our history in Lancaster city and how queer spaces were navigated.
What Queer Lancaster Might Have Meant to Him
A quick Google search will tell you a plethora of LGBTQIA+ friendly spaces in the city where queer folx know they can walk in and not only be affirmed, but embraced. A night out at The Midnight Oil playing board games, a stop at Lancatster Cat Café to spend time with kittens and get coffee, a movie at Zoetropolis with queer characters - all these spaces are crafted by queer people for everyone, with the promise that our queer community will be safe.
While this is a semblance of normalcy within the city limits, it feels like a sanctuary for queer folx especially among the rising anti-trans and queer rhetoric in the political spheres. Would Demuth have a cup of coffee at Prince Street Café and people-watch as an out and proud gay man in our times? Would we catch him at a local drag show at High Fever or Phantom Power? Would the safety of LGBTQIA+ flags in windows in city businesses offer him relief? He seemingly enjoyed being a social butterfly among the artist and writer spaces, so perhaps he could fit right into the scene that Lancaster city offers.
Preserving Our Queer History
At a time where the country is divided and people are fearful of political decisions over their own bodies, it is important to reflect on the momentous events of our queer history. The trouble with this is that this was another time period where history was being erased as they walked the streets and showed visibility.
For instance, there were arresting dress laws from the late 19th century to late 20th century where visibility could lead one to be arrested (Sears, 2014). As queer communities do, they persevered, found safe havens, and made networks for safety. This is much like what we are doing now. As we fight for our rights, our bodies, and our community, we look to legacies to see how they persevered through hard times.
Legacy and Reflection
Even though Demuth’s queerness stays mysterious, we can still reflect on his life and his struggles walking the very streets we do. He held racial and class privilege and was supported by his family, something that not all of us in the queer community can connect with. What did coming out feel like to him? Did he tell his parents? What are his love stories? Was his extensive traveling and living in Paris, Provincetown, and New York due to seeking out queer culture and queer spaces?
I imagine a sit-down conversation with Demuth would be filled with stories in the Gayborhood of Philadelphia, the nightlife of Paris, and the camaraderie of Greenwich Village artists that would put stars in our eyes. I also envision, as with any artist, feeling about the inner turmoil of coming to terms with an identity that was encouraged to be invisible.
A Piece of Queer History on King Street
There’s a chance to see his art and his legacy at 120 East King Street, where his studio, his mother’s garden, and his father’s tobacco shop were. We can peruse parts of his collection (he had a total of over 1000 works) and get a glimpse into his life. The Demuth Foundation has acknowledged his queer identity and the spaces that he may have been, though they still do not have much information about it as well.
While we can only muse on his experiences, there is something he does offer us. A little piece of queer history sits in our city on that street, from a gay artist whose fame overrode the times where homosexuality was hidden. We walk the same streets potentially mulling over the same thoughts about the cognitive dissonance of being proud of his identity and staying safe in a world that does not always embrace it. I hope he had some spots in Lancaster that made him smile, where he could breathe a sigh of relief knowing that one part of his identity does not have to be hidden.
Perhaps, like Demuth, we find our own safe havens - and create them for others.
Data Sources:
Demuth Foundation. 2025. “Charles Demuth.” https://www.demuth.org/charles-demuth
Ferentinos, S. 2023. “The Queer Life of Charles Demuth.”
Sears, C. 2014. Arresting Dress: Cross-dressing, law, and fascination in nineteenth-century
San Francisco. Duke University Press.
