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List of LGBT artists at the Olympic Games

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LGBT Olympians and Paralympians

Lists of LGBT+ Summer Olympic athletes
(1896–2000), (2004–2020), (2024); by debut

List of LGBT+ Winter Olympians; by debut

List of LGBT+ Paralympians; by debut

List of LGBT+ artists at the Olympics
LGBTI history and issues

There are 27 Olympic artists who have identified or been identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and/or androgynous, or who had been in a same-sex relationship. The first Olympic Games in which an artist now known to be LGBT+ competed was the 1912 Summer Olympics. The first contemporaneously out LGBT+ artists competed in 1924, with the first LGBT+ Olympic medalist in art winning in 1928. The artistic events were not contested after 1948.

Not including demonstration events, 5 of the LGBT+ artists won a medal, with another receiving an honourable mention but no medals (24% of LGBT+ artists). None won a gold medal.

Overview

All based on the List of LGBT artists at the Olympic Games

By country
Country Number of Olympians
F M Total
 France – 1 1
 Germany 3 3 6
 Great Britain – 3 3
 Ireland 1 — 1
 Italy – 2 2
 Mexico — 1 1
 Poland — 2 2
 South Africa – 3 3
 United States 5 3 8
By year
Games Number of Olympians
F M Total
1912 Summer — 1 1
1924 Summer — 4 4
1928 Summer 4 3 7
1932 Summer 4 4 8
1936 Summer 2 3 5
1948 Summer — 5 5

By art
Art Number of Olympians by gender
Female Male Total
Epic Literature — 1 1
Dance 1 1 2
Drawings and water colours (Painting) — 2 2
Graphic arts — 2 2
Literature (Open) — 3 3
Lyric works (Literature) — 2 2
Painting 1 6 7
Sculpting (Open) 2 2 4
Statue sculpting 5 1 6
Notes
  1. Including Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany
  2. Including Irish Free State
  3. Including Kingdom of Italy and Fascist Italy
  4. Including Union of South Africa
  5. Including multi-year appearances of the same Olympian.
  6. Including multi-disciplinary Olympians
  7. Demonstration event


Key

Δ Was known to be widely out prior to their most recent Olympic competition; contemporaneously out while competing

† Came out after competing

‡ Posthumously identified as LGBT+

  • Tables are default sorted by first Games appearance chronologically, then current surname or common nickname alphabetically, then first name alphabetically. They can be sorted by current surname (where used) or common nickname alphabetically; by country and event alphabetically; by Games chronologically; and by medals as organised in Olympics medals tables.

LGBTQ artists

Artist Country Category Games Medal(s) Notes
Gabriele D'Annunzio Kingdom of Italy Literature 1912 Despite being reportedly physically off-putting, D'Annunzio was such a charming man he attracted everyone, including lesbians and Robert de Montesquiou, and was open to all lovers. Besides competing in 1912, he was a judge for the same event in 1924.
Fanie Eloff † South Africa Union of South Africa Sculpture 1924 Eloff's sexuality was made public after his contribution to the Games, when his series of sculptures of nude male dancers led to outcry, further inspection, and then his shunning from South African society.
Vincenzo Gemito Δ Fascist Italy Sculpture 1924 Gemito was known to be gay among fellow artists from his early days, and the homoeroticism in his drawings supposedly made it obvious to everyone else. Between being an orphan denied of a heteronormative family, and his growing prominence in society from his success in sculpting, he attempted to steer his personal and professional circles to appear straight; doing so reportedly drove him insane, and he spent two decades in and out of asylums before being finally released in 1909. Unlike his partner Antonio Mancini, who had also been sent to an asylum, Gemito managed to have a career after his release, though it was made clear that he could no longer create homosexual art if he wished to be prominent. At the 1924 Games, he entered seven pieces into the sculpture competition and was also a judge of it; none of his pieces placed.
Robert Graves Δ  Great Britain Literature 1924 Graves was openly bisexual, having intense relationships with men and (often masculine) women. In the 1920s, he lived in polyamorous groups. In his 1929 autobiography, Good-Bye to All That, he described himself as "pseudo-homosexual", and suggested that all-male public schools were the cause. His father-in-law, William Nicholson, was a 1928 gold medalist in graphic arts.
Henry de Montherlant †  France Literature 1924 Montherlant was said to have kept his homosexuality a secret during his life, despite a same-sex relationship in his youth leading to his expulsion from his Catholic school, and this incident being dramatised by Montherlant himself as the play La Ville dont le prince est un enfant. He also detailed his homosexual interests in a long-withheld autobiography.
Arno Breker Weimar Republic Germany (Weimar Republic) /  Nazi Germany Sculpture 1928, 1936 2nd place, silver medalist(s) Originally labelled Degenerate, Breker came to be Hitler's favourite sculptor; the Nazi state sculptor; and one of the select artists on the Gottbegnadeten list. His 1936 silver medal-winning statue of a decathlete still stands outside the Olympiastadion. Breker's art, predominantly male nude sculptures, was used by the Nazis to propagate the concept of German physical superiority, despite the statues being greatly homoerotic and the Nazi official stance against homosexuality. His artwork not produced for the Nazis comprised many busts of other gay artists, including Jean Cocteau, a close friend, who wrote that Hitler saw Breker as a son. Breker was reportedly closeted. After World War II, he rejected Nazism.
Ludwig von Hofmann Weimar Republic Germany (Weimar Republic) Painting and graphic art 1928 Considered iconic of homosexual artists of his time, Hofmann married a female cousin and so may have been bisexual.
Anna Hyatt Huntington United States United States Sculpture 1928 For some time lived with Brenda Putnam.
Mainie Jellett Republic of Ireland Irish Free State Painting and graphic art 1928 Jellett's relationship with Evie Hone was dramatised in the 2020 play Female Nude Seated.
Janet Scudder United States United States Sculpture 1928 Scudder lived the last years of her life with her female partner. She had been good friends with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.
Renée Sintenis Δ Weimar Republic Germany (Weimar Republic) Sculpture 1928, 1932 3rd place, bronze medalist(s) Sintenis won the bronze medal in the 1928 statue sculpting competition. Best known for creating the Golden Bear, she was a popular socialite in inter-war Europe and famous for her androgyny; for this and her Jewish heritage, she was persecuted under the Nazi regime. Art scholar Nina Lübbren has suggested that Sintenis may have consciously performed masculine gender to be accepted as a sculptor, though it is typically acknowledged that androgynous gender was part of the Neue Frau ideal Sintenis embodied. Scholar Kocku von Stuckrad wrote that Sintenis "playfully evaded prescribed gender roles." She married artist Emil Rudolf Weiß and, after his sudden death, had a lifelong relationship with a woman, Magdalena Goldmann. Sintenis and Weiß rarely collaborated, most famously doing so to produce drawings and typeface, respectively, for a collection of Sappho poetry. Weiß is said to have "tolerated" Sintenis' queerness later in their marriage. He also entered the 1928 Olympics. Julie Nero wrote that Sintenis avoided depicting gender, even in her sculptures of athletes (one of which won her the Olympic medal), due to her identity.
Ángel Zárraga  Mexico Painting and graphic art 1928, 1932
Thomas Eakins United States United States Painting and graphic art 1932 Art scholarship debates whether Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer, whose artwork is often discussed together, identified as homosexual. William S. McFeely wrote that, amidst the debate, there is little doubt that Eakins was attracted to men. Eakins and Homer both died before their work was submitted to the Olympics, and as such it was not considered officially in competition.
Beatrice Fenton United States United States Sculpture 1932
Harriet Whitney Frishmuth ‡ United States United States Sculpture 1932 While Frishmuth was not open about her sexuality in press interviews of the day, archival records document that she was a lesbian, her partner Ruth Talcott having lived with her from the 1940s until Frishmuth's death in 1980.
Winslow Homer United States United States Painting and graphic art 1932 Art scholarship debates whether Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer, whose artwork is often discussed together, identified as homosexual. Debate continues as to Homer's sexuality and academic tendencies to not acknowledge it (likened to Michelangelo), with scholar Philip Beam suggesting that Homer simply was not interested in relationships. Eakins and Homer both died before their work was submitted to the Olympics, and as such it was not considered officially in competition.
Brenda Putnam United States United States Sculpture 1932 For some time lived with Anna Hyatt Huntington.
Carl Sprinchorn United States United States Painting and graphic art 1932
Harald Kreutzberg Δ  Nazi Germany Dance 1936 Harald Kreutzberg and Mary Wigman competed in the dance demonstration event, winning medals. Kreutzberg was openly gay and had "androgynous aspects".
Jan Parandowski Poland Poland Literature 1936 3rd place, bronze medalist(s)
Milly Steger  Nazi Germany Sculpture 1936
Mary Wigman ‡  Nazi Germany Dance 1936 Harald Kreutzberg and Mary Wigman competed in the dance demonstration event, winning medals. After the Games, the Nazis had no more use for Wigman, and she was included in the artists labelled Degenerate. Dance scholars and Wigman's biographers have written on her relationship with Berthe Trümpy and possible bisexuality, and agree that being the object of same-sex desire had a great impact on her work.
Delmar Banner  Great Britain Painting and graphic art 1948 Banner was gay, which he revealed to his wife shortly after they married; they adopted two sons together.
Walter Battiss ‡ South Africa Union of South Africa Painting and graphic art 1948 3rd place, bronze medalist(s) A large number of letters written by Battiss and discovered posthumously reveal his longstanding bisexuality, and "gravitation towards homosexuality in his later years".
Roy De Maistre  Great Britain Painting and graphic art 1948 Described as "a homosexual of extreme discretion".
Eleuter Iwaszkiewicz Poland Poland Literature 1948 Iwaszkiewicz' lyric work received an "honourable mention" at the Games. He dedicated it to Paul Claudel. Iwaszkiewicz is modernly considered bisexual, and there are strong homoerotic themes in his work; he had a wife and children, who knew of his orientation, and described himself as homosexual.
Ernst van Heerden Δ South Africa Union of South Africa Literature 1948 2nd place, silver medalist(s) Van Heerden won his medal for a set of Afrikaans poems. An openly gay academic, he was best known for his sports poetry.

Notes

  1. ^ Based on the information collected on this page
  2. ^ Harald Kreutzberg and Mary Wigman received medals in the competition part of the 1936 dance event. As a demonstration event, these are not counted.
  3. Where artists have represented multiple countries, competed in multiple events, and/or at multiple Games, the country/event/Games they are sorted by is their first country/event/Games chronologically.
  4. Based on most golds over total medals, then alphabetically by current surname or common nickname. In cases of medals for demonstration events and honourable mentions, these are sorted between one bronze and no medals.
  5. ^ Received an honourable mention in an artistic event.

References

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  8. Shirley 2019.
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  10. Olympedia 2022d.
  11. Olympedia 2022e.
  12. Lançon 2016.
  13. Aldrich & Wotherspoon 2020, pp. 376–377.
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  35. ^ Lübbren 2020.
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  41. Nero 2014.
  42. Bleys 2000.
  43. ^ Summers 2012, pp. 18–20, 34.
  44. McFeely 2007.
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  49. Ellenzweig 2011.
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  51. Cohn 1996.
  52. Check, Deniston & Desai 1997.
  53. Fiegl 2008.
  54. Siddons 2021.
  55. Langa 2010.
  56. Sherman North 2019.
  57. Walker 2021.
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  60. Ruprecht 2019.
  61. Ozoliņš & Vērdiņš 2016.
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