100 Heroes: Paul Thek
The gay man who became an influential artist.
Paul Thek was a painter, sculptor and installation artist.
Biography
Born in Brooklyn in 1933, Thek studied art in New York City and then moved to Miami upon graduation.
In Miami, Thek began a relationship with Peter Harvey - a set designer - who introduced Thek to artists as well as writers such as Tennessee Williams.
In 1957, Thek exhibited his works for the first time at Mirrell Gallery in Miami. It was in Florida that Thek first met photographer Peter Hujar.
By the end of 1959, Thek and Hujar, now a couple, were living in New York.
Thek traveled to Italy in 1962, and with Hujar visited the Catacombs of the Capuchins in Palermo, an experience which had a strong influence on his work.
In 1964, Thek participated in Andy Warhol's Screen Tests. It was during this time that he began to work in installation and sculpture, most notably creating wax sculptures made in the likeness of meat.
Thek traveled and lived throughout Europe during the late 1960s and early 1970s and worked on large scale installations.
After a peripatetic lifestyle, Thek took up permanent residence in New York in 1976 and began teaching at Cooper Union. Amid increasing emotional stress, he struggled to make and sell work, but began to show nationally and internationally again during the 1980s.
Thek died on in 1988 as a result of AIDS-related illnesses.
