‘Ted Carey: Queer as Folk’ at Guild Hall

Guild Hall opens a new exhibition, “Ted Carey: Queer as Folk,” this week. Guild Hall members will get an advance preview of the show on Saturday, May 18, from noon to 5 p.m. It will be on view in the Marks Family Gallery North/Tito Spiga Exhibition Space from May 19 through July 15.

Born and raised in Chester, Pennsylvania, Edward “Ted” Fawcett Carey (1932-1985) moved to New York in 1955. There he pursued a career in graphic design and forged a close friendship with Andy Warhol. Later, he developed a distinctive mode of painting informed by his keen interest in American folk art.

While living between New York and East Hampton in the 1970s and 1980s, Carey produced a small yet compelling body of work that mimics aspects of vernacular painting, chronicles his life and relationships, and pictures facets of queer culture. Sharply observed and highly detailed, Carey’s faux-naïf paintings depict places he frequented and people he admired. Several canvases document his favorite haunts in New York and his home in East Hampton. Other paintings function as portraits that celebrate the creative lives of gay men.

Indebted to the foresight and generosity of Carey’s longtime partner, this exhibition draws from the Tito Spiga Bequest to Guild Hall. It surveys Carey’s art for the first time since 1985, when an East Hampton gallery mounted a memorial show of his paintings in the days following his death from AIDS.

“Until now, Ted Carey has been something of an art historical footnote due to his friendship and association with Andy Warhol,” said guest curator Matthew Nichols, PhD. “The paintings he produced in the last decade of his life are both fastidious and fascinating. They are not widely known and came to my attention after Guild Hall fully digitized its permanent collection. I am glad for this opportunity to work with Guild Hall, to help remedy Ted Carey’s obscurity, and to share his creative achievement with a larger audience.”

Nichols earned a B.A. from Vassar College and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University, where his dissertation examined the queer dimensions of Andy Warhol’s pre-Pop art and career. A specialist in modern and contemporary American art, he taught art history and connoisseurship at Christie’s Education for more than 16 years. He has also taught courses at Sotheby’s Institute of Art and The New School, where he was an adjunct assistant professor for many years. His critical writing has appeared in Art in America, Art on Paper, Photograph, and various exhibition catalogs. As an independent curator, he has organized thematic group exhibitions for The Arts Center at Duck Creek in East Hampton and other venues.

Two public programs will be presented in conjunction with “Ted Carey: Queer as Folk,” including a talk by curator Matthew Nichols on Sunday, June 2, at 2 p.m., and a conversation between Nichols and artist Anne Buckwalter on Sunday, June 23, at 2 p.m.

Guild Hall’s galleries are open Friday to Monday, noon to 5 p.m. Museum admission is free. For more information, visit GuildHall.org. Guild Hall is at 158 Main Street in East Hampton.