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Guide to the Richard Marshall Collection of Gay Erotica and Pornography MSS.498

Richard Marshall Collection of Gay Erotica and Pornography

Call Number

MSS.498

Date

1950-2011, inclusive

Creator

Marshall, Richard, 1947-2014
Georgis, William T., 1958- (Role: Donor)

Extent

38 Linear Feet
in 3 manuscript boxes, 34 record cartons, and 1 flat box.

Extent

173 videocassettes (vhs)

Extent

120 videodiscs (dvd)

Extent

4 electronic discs (cd-rom)

Language of Materials

Materials are in English.

Abstract

New York-based curator, art consultant, and art historian Richard D. Marshall (1947-2014) worked for 20 years at the Whitney Museum, served as art editor of the Paris Review, and was curator at the Lever House Art Collection in New York. This collection contains erotic pulp novels; gay erotic and pornographic magazines, zines, serials, and internet fiction stories; widely-themed calendars and catalogs; gay erotic and pornographic illustrations; and pornographic films in VHS and DVD format from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Collectible dolls and other related items can also be found in this collection.

Biographical Note

New York-based curator, art consultant, and art historian Richard D. Marshall (1947-2014) worked for 20 years at the Whitney Museum, where he organized numerous Biennial Exhibitions of contemporary art, and many seminal one-artist and group exhibitions. He served as art editor of the Paris Review, from 1975-1990 and was also curator for more than a decade at the Lever House Art Collection in New York beginning in 2003. He passed away in California in 2014 at the age of 67.

Sources:

http://www.artnews.com/2014/08/14/richard-d-marshall-longtime-whitney-curator-who-helped-build-the-lever-house-collection-dies-at-67/

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?pid=172073310

Arrangement

This collection was kept in the creator's original arrangement, grouped by item type. Within these groupings, items were arranged and series were made by Fales student workers. This collection is divided into twelve series, three of which have been separated further into subseries. The series and subseries in the collection are as follows:

Series I. Pulp Novels, 1972-1996, undated

Series II. Magazines and Serials, 1948-2011, undated

Subseries II.A. Magazines, 1948-2011, undated

Subseries II.B. Serials, 1981-2000

Series III. Zines, 1964-2009, undated

Series IV. Pornographic Film Tie-ins, 1977-1983, undated

Series V. Catalogs and Calendars, 1997-2006, undated

Series VI. Advertisements, 1998-2000, undated

Series VII. Graphics, 1950-2007, undated

Subseries VII.A. Graphics and Illustrations, 1998-2000, undated

Subseries VII.B. Japanese Publications, 1950-2007, undated

Series VIII. Web Fiction, 1986-2003, undated

Series IX. Films, 1981-2007, undated

Subseries IX.A. Videocassettes (VHS), 1981-2004, undated

Subseries IX.B. Videodiscs (DVD), 1995-2007, undated

Series X. Clippings, 1997-2010, undated

Series XI. Dolls and Objects, 2003-2009, undated

Series XII. Work Files, 1964-2008, undated

Scope and Contents

This collection contains erotic pulp novels from the 1970s to the 1990s; gay erotic and pornographic magazines, zines, and serials spanning the 1940s through 2011; themed calendars and catalogs; gay erotic and pornographic illustrations; pornographic internet fiction stories written during the 1980s through the 2000s; and pornographic films in VHS and DVD format from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Tom of Finland "001 Rebel" and "Carlos the First Out and Proud Boyfriend" collectible dolls, as well as other related items can also be found in this collection. This collection illustrates the accumulation of pornography and erotic material by a gay man with a wide range of sexual interests, while living in New York during the 1970s through the 2000s. Additionally these same materials were used by Marshall as research and content for his proposed book illustrating homoerotic art throughout history. This collection includes a mock-up of the proposed book with supporting material.

Subjects

Genres

People

Topics

Conditions Governing Access

Open to researchers. Appointments are necessary for the use of manuscript and archival collections.

Audiovisual material in this collection is not available for playback. Researchers may view an item's original container.

Conditions Governing Use

NYU's Fales Library & Special Collections is not the copyright owner for this collection. Collection use is subject to all copyright laws. Researchers wishing to reproduce collection material should contact rights holders for permission.

Preferred Citation

Identification of item, date; Richard Marshall Collection; MSS 498; box number; folder number; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University.

Location of Materials

Materials are stored both onsite and offsite. Advance notice is required for use. Please contact fales.library@nyu.edu at least two business days prior to your research visit to coordinate access.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by William T. Georgis in 2016. The accession number associated with this gift is 2017.088.

Custodial History

The material was kept in Marshall's office apartment on the Upper East Side of New York until it was boxed up by his heirs and donated to Fales in 2016.

Separated Materials

Issues of G-Men, the Japanese manga magazine, were separated from this collection and catalogued individually.

The following items were deaccessioned by the Librarian for Fales Archival Collection and Reference:

Red velvet purse with 8.5 in glass dildo

T-Shirt. White, with black printed drawing of a naked man with six arms and a snake penis

Tom of Finland Doll

Red rubber double-ended dildo. In plastic wrap. (17 inches)

Black Anal Plug (11 inches)

RealCast Kris Lord Supercock. 'Lifesize' dildo in red draw-string bag (10 inches)

Collection processed by

Stacey Flatt, with arrangement and series assignments by Julia LePla, Gina Modero and Dylan Rogers.

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 17:03:44 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Finding aid written in English

Processing Information

This collection was processed and an inventory spreadsheet was made by Fales Library student workers between 2016 and 2017. The material was kept in the original order as it was found in the donor's office. In 2017, an archivist wrote a finding aid and ingested the spreadsheet into a folder level inventory.

Revisions to this Guide

February 14, 2022: Updated by Lyric to reflect the digitization of video materials

Repository

Fales Library and Special Collections
Fales Library and Special Collections
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012
https://library.nyu.edu/locations/special-collections-center/