Before the advent of digital pornography, the artistic depiction of queer fantasies was not just a form of expression but a bold statement against societal norms. In the heart of this artistic revolution was Rex, a mysterious figure whose real name and age remain obscured by his reclusive nature. Rex, believed to be around 76 or 77 at his time of death in Amsterdam, was a seminal figure in the world of gay fetish art, alongside contemporaries like Tom of Finland. His art, renowned for its raw, graphic depictions of the S&M subculture, reflected a burgeoning scene on the American coasts during the 1970s.
The Art of Darkness: Capturing the S&M Subculture
After a brief stint in commercial art during the 1960s, Rex adopted his moniker and began crafting his distinctive style, employing pointillism to illustrate scenes of explicit gay sex set in dimly lit dive bars, dank alleyways, and nondescript motels. His work, filled with muscular, roughened men engaging in acts that were as much about power as pleasure, adorned everything from pulp novel covers to the walls of legendary gay bars like New York’s Mineshaft. Historians like Trent Dunphy from the Bob Mizer Foundation recall Rex as a “great talker” who lived a life shrouded in privacy, choosing never to be photographed and often immersing himself in his completely black-painted San Francisco studio.
A Reclusive Life and a Quiet End
Rex ceased producing new drawings with the onset of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s, a period that saw many artists pull back from the public eye. Disenchanted with what he viewed as America’s moralistic decline, Rex relocated to Europe, seeking a culture more in tune with his ideals. His departure marked a significant, if understated, moment in the history of gay erotica and fetish art. His death in late March was not just the loss of a prolific artist but the fading of a once-vivid chapter in the annals of gay culture and artistic expression.