‘All of Me with All of You: LGBTQ+ Art Out of the Collection’ opens at the Heckscher Museum
For the first time, The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington is exploring its collection through the lens of LGBTQ+ identities and histories. Spanning more than 150 years, the Museum-wide exhibition All of Me with All of You: LGBTQ+ Art Out of the Collection includes significant paintings, sculptures, and works on paper acquired over decades for the Museum collection. The exhibit opened on June 7 and runs through Sept. 14.
Artists who lived and worked on Long Island will anchor All of Me with All of You. Among the 86 works on view are six photographs taken on Fire Island by the collective PaJaMa (Paul Cadmus, Jared French, and Margaret French) expressing the artistic and personal freedoms that LGBTQ+ communities nurtured on Long Island in the first half of the twentieth century. Photographs by Huntington artist Joanne Mulberg capture the spirit of Fire Island in the 1970s and 1980s.
“The artworks that I selected for this exhibition reveal profound, often overlooked connections between the Museum, its surrounding landscape and the queer communities that shaped it. By recognizing these works as queer—and honoring their historical and cultural significance —the Museum offers pivotal support and inspiration, not only to artists but to LGBTQ+ communities,” said Guest Curator Victoria Munro, Artist, and Executive Director of the Alice Austen House.
“This is an expansive, groundbreaking exhibition developed by guest curator Victoria Munro, with valuable input from an intergenerational advisory group, teen community members, and local non-profit partners,” noted Heather Arnet, Executive Director and CEO.
“By amplifying the stories of artists such as Marsden Hartley, Emma Stebbins, and Emilio Sanchez, long represented in the collection, and placing their art in dialogue with more recent acquisitions by the PaJaMa collective, Amy Adler, Laylah Ali, vanessa german, and Mickalene Thomas, the exhibition highlights the depth of the permanent collection and the rich history of LGBTQ+ art history on Long Island. We hope visitors will be excited to engage with one another in dialogues inspired by the works, fostering a broader understanding of our past and deepening connections to the present,” said Arnet.
All of Me with All of You —along with all the exhibitions and programs planned in 2025—”contribute to presenting a fuller, more accurate story of American Art,” said Chief Curator, Karli Wurzelbacher, Ph.D.
The exhibition title All of Me With All of You reflects a spirit of collective strength and acknowledges the networks and spaces where queer artists create, uplift, and sustain one another, said Munro. In addition to her leadership at The Alice Austin House, she is Board President of the Museums Council of New York City. She consults and speaks on LGBTQ+ curriculum development, and LGBTQ+ interpretation in public and private institutions.
Exhibition Highlights:
The delicate yet profound imagery found in the private trove of photographs by the PaJaMa collective captures an era of queer artistic collaboration and self-exploration These images offer a rare glimpse into the private lives and intimate bonds of figures who shaped 20th-century art and culture, serving as a visual archive of a community that often thrived in the margins.
At the other end of the spectrum, Emma Stebbins’ neoclassical marble sculpture of her partner Charlotte Cushman embodies a different yet equally powerful artistic statement. As a celebrated 19th-century actress known for her gender-fluid performances and her defiant embrace of a life outside traditional norms, Cushman’s presence in the collection serves as a testament to both personal and artistic courage. Stebbins’s sculptural tribute to her reinforces the museum’s recognition of important historic figures who challenged societal conventions and left an indelible mark on art history.
Betty Parsons, widely recognized as a pioneering art dealer and champion of Abstract Expressionism, appears in the collection not just as a tastemaker but as an artist in her own right. Her handcrafted wooden tugboat, reminiscent of a child’s toy, exudes a charming, playful innocence, contrasting with the depth and expansiveness suggested by her abstract oil painting Gulf of Mexico.
Mickalene Thomas draws inspiration from the interiors of her childhood and the women who played formative roles in her life. Through her signature use of texture, pattern, and bold cold, she creates rich, layered spaces that evoke warmth, nostalgia, and strength. Her work is both a personal homage and a broader celebration of Black womanhood, family, and the idea of home as a space of identity and empowerment.
The Heckscher Museum of Art is located at 2 Prime Avenue in Huntington. For more information, call 631-380-3230 or visit www.heckscher.org.
This project is made possible with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. With this generous support, the Museum will engage youth and intergenerational community members in a robust year of exhibitions and public programming highlighting and celebrating works, histories, and legacies of LGBTQ+ artists in their permanent collection.
