The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art is the only museum in the world entirely dedicated to LGBTQ+ art. Among the artists represented in its collection are Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Catherine Opie, David Wojnarowicz, and Tom of Finland, alongside dozens of contemporary creators exploring themes of identity, gender, and the body.
Located in the heart of SoHo, the museum feels more like a social gallery than a traditional institution — a living space for art, community, and dialogue.
History
Collectors and partners Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman met in New York in the late 1950s and spent several decades together, turning their shared passion for gay art into a lifelong mission.
Leslie, originally from Idaho, served in Europe after the war and spent several years in Paris, where he began collecting drawings and photographs exploring the human body and identity. Returning to New York, he worked in antiques, theater, and interior design while quietly assembling a collection of works then considered marginal or “obscene.”
Lohman, a designer and artist, curated their joint exhibitions and developed a recognizable visual language — clean space, soft light, and a deep respect for intimacy and the human form.
In 1969, Charles and Fritz organized an exhibition of gay artists in their home — a nearly revolutionary act at the time, when most galleries refused to show such work. Their SoHo loft soon became an informal hub for queer art.
Over time, this initiative grew into the Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation, which became the largest collection of queer art in the United States. A generation of artists lost to the AIDS crisis gave the collection not only artistic but also memorial significance. In 2011, the foundation officially became a museum, and in 2016, it received accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM).
After the passing of Fritz Lohman (2009) and Charles Leslie (2022), the museum continues their legacy as one of New York’s most vibrant cultural spaces. It participates in biennials, collaborates with MoMA and the Whitney, supports emerging artists, and builds a new history — one where art is no longer divided into categories.
Collection and Exhibitions
The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art collection includes more than 25,000 works, spanning over a century of queer creativity — from 19th-century erotic drawings to contemporary multimedia installations.
Among the artists represented are David Wojnarowicz, Andy Warhol, Catherine Opie, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Nan Goldin, Keith Haring, Tom of Finland, and many others whose work was once excluded from institutional recognition.
The museum hosts several major exhibitions each year — typically six to eight large-scale projects in its main galleries, along with rotating installations in its Wooster Street windows, visible to the public 24/7.
Exhibitions here reexamine queer history through art — for instance, “Uncensored: Queer Art and the Struggle for Visibility”, which showcased archival works once deemed “too explicit” for public galleries, or “After Silence”, a project exploring the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on New York’s artistic communities.
Today, Leslie-Lohman remains the world’s only museum institution devoted entirely to LGBTQ+ art — a space where creativity becomes a language for body, identity, and freedom.
Visitor Information
Address: 26 Wooster St, New York, NY 10013
Website: www.leslielohman.org
Admission: Free (suggested donation: $10)
