George Wolfe Plank

George Wolfe Plank ( – ) was an American artist illustrator, chiefly remembered for his long-term association with Vogue magazine, which resulted in years of covers in an Art Deco style related to that of Helen Dryden although uniquely adventurous and queer.

Life George Wolfe Plank was born in 1883 in a poor family near Gettysburg. He was raised by his grandparents in Bendersville after his mother died. While working in factories and stores he taught himself to draw and paint .

In 1907, he moved to Philadelphia and started editing and publishing The Butterfly Quarterly with Margaret H. Scott, Alice Smith and Amy Smith .

In 1915, Plank meets E.F. Benson with whom he has an intense relationship. Neither Plank nor Benson declared themselves homosexuals publically. However, their correspondance and journals leave very little doubt as to their sexual orientation. They lived together, presented as a couple in their social circles and Plank also became close to Mary Benson, Benson's mother . In 1916, he illustrated the cover for E.F. Benson's latest book, The Freaks of Mayfair . William Packer described Plank's concept of fashion as "ideal, bizarre and improbable, at once adventurous and yet romantic and nostalgic" .

This very style is qualified as "queer" by Christopher Reed : " I intend 'queer' here in its broadest sense, to indicate an attitude that delighted in destabilising institutionally sanctioned hierarchies". British Vogue 's queerness reached its peak under Dorothy Todd who was its editor between 1922 et 1926. However, Plank's art started challenging artistic norms as well as heterosexual and cisgender social constructs in 1917, thanks to "etiolated" body proportions, inspiration from fin-de-siècle decadence and bizarre clothing. According to Dominic Janes, "his style was all about artificiality and performativity" .

Selected book illustrations The Freaks of Mayfair (1916) by E. F. Benson The London Years (1923) by James Whitall