If you’re expecting to see a collection of male nudes at Arthur Tress‘ new exhibition at the Gala Pride and Diversity Center, you may be disappointed.
“I think most gay photography done by men that has been popular has always been focused on the male nude,” Tress explained during a recent Zoom call from his San Francisco home. “It’s always shifted to the side of erotica. In my work, I’ve certainly done that kind of imagery, but I wanted to show that, being a gay artist, one should represent perhaps more, that there were more psychological aspects to gay life.”
The 16 square black and white photographs on display at the San Luis Obispo venue fall into two general categories.
“I thought an interesting relationship to photograph would be gays and their parents, which really hadn’t been explored very much, visually,” Tress explained. “So, I asked a lot of the gay people I knew in the San Luis Obispo area, ‘Can I photograph you with your parents?’ And they were happy to do it. They wanted to have some memento of their relationship.
“You find that that’s a very complex set of interactions between the parent and child,” Tress continued. “Often the parents did not accept their son’s homosexuality at first, but as the years went by, especially if the son had a more ‘normal’ domestic life—a partner or husband—the parents would usually become more accepting.”
Tress knows firsthand that not all parent-child relationships survive the process of coming out.
“In the case of my sister, who was a lesbian, she came out in high school, but my mother never accepted it and actually never talked to my sister for the rest of her life. That’s not atypical. Parents will reject their children if they find out that they’re gay.”
Tress, 85, believes his mother was disappointed in not having a “more normal daughter.” He recalls when he was 5 or 6, his mother took him to ballet school.
“I became a surrogate daughter, which I never liked, but it’s often a very complex psychological situation.”
Depicting these psychological situations is Tress’ goal.
“Some of my best photography, and something that I’m famous for, is that I ask people to act out some of their inner dramas. It’s almost like a scene from a film. I create little soap opera dramas that may not be truly specific to the people involved, but they enjoy acting out in my little theater pieces.”
Most of the show’s photos were taken between 1993 and 2015 when Tress lived in Cambria and was part of a gay men’s group that would meet monthly. Sometimes an image was solicited by the subject. One man, Roger, asked Tress to come to his father’s Los Osos nursing home and take a double portrait.
“So I went, and I took a picture of Roger and his father, which Roger treasured very much.”
Another more recent photo taken a few years ago is of Tress’ friend Eric, who lives in San Francisco’s Castro District. Surprisingly, he had a stroke at age 60, so Eric’s mother came to take care of him.
“I wanted a kind of [Michelangelo’s] Pietà feeling in the picture of this older parent taking care of her son.”
Pietà is Michelangelo’s famed marble sculpture of the Virgin Mary cradling her son Jesus after his crucifixion.
A photo he calls “more typical Tress” is a mini-golf setup where he posed a mother with her son and his boyfriend. It looks like the mother might be wielding her club at the boyfriend.
“This is in the miniature golf course in Cambria outside the Pines Resort. Her son’s new boyfriend wants to take her son to live with him in Australia, so I thought maybe the mother might not be happy with that. People are amazed how I can get people to do these things. I don’t think they’re really aware of what I’m trying to show. It’s because I’m charming,” he laughed.
A few of the photos were taken elsewhere, but Tress felt they fit in this collection.
“Some of them are in different cities, like Miami or Berlin, but most of these photographs have never been published or even seen, so I wanted to get them shown, so I kind of fit them into the overall project.”
The second type of photo he’s displaying relates to gay romance.
“I’m always interested in the psychological dynamics of romantic relationships. When I was living in [Cambria], I became involved with a younger man. He wanted to get a master’s degree, so I was driving him around to look at different schools, and this is just what a parent does. And my friend Duane Michals, who’s a photographer, said, ‘Arthur, you’re a closet father.’ I think, quite often, that’s a dynamic.”
Vince and Arthur just before separating, Cambria is a photo of Tress and this former lover. It depicts him and his then boyfriend reflected in two separate mirrors.
“That’s a very touching photo,” Tress said quietly. “He lived with me for about three years in Cambria, so this is where we’re separating, because he’s going on to lead his own life.”
Tress doesn’t identify himself as a gay activist.
“I don’t really participate in protests and all that, but I do think I have certain insights to the gay experience, and I’ve worked to get that out into the world in my books. I’ve done a couple of retrospectives of my life’s work, and I always make sure to include the gay photography,” he explained.
He’s aware we’re living in a scary time for American civil rights.
“You know, also, I’m Jewish. I took a class in German history, and I studied with the husband of Hannah Arendt, who wrote a book called The Origins of Totalitarianism. And oh my God, you can see it, everyone sees it. I don’t know why they don’t mention it more often, but the parallels to Nazi Germany, the media, the deportation, these camps. I mean, if you think those camps are just going to be for migrants, forget it. Once Trump has finished with his migrant thing, I think they’re going to segue over to gay marriage, gay teachers in schools. When AIDS came along, there were a lot of protests, but now, the way he’s brought in the Marines and the National Guard, any protests will be squelched down immediately. I think we’re in for a very bumpy ride.”
Tress’ escape plan?
“Death. I’ll probably die.” Δ
Contact Arts Editor Glen Starkey at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 10, 2025.