The Secret Public: LGBTQ Pop 1955 - 1985
Opening 15 May 2025
Landmark exhibition celebrates LGBTQ pop and its wider influence.
The Secret Public: LGBTQ Pop 1955 – 1985 examines the profound influence of LGBTQ performers, artists and activists on mainstream pop culture. Based on Jon Savage’s book The Secret Public - How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture 1955 - 1979 this new exhibition presents key pieces from the extensive archive collected by the author and University of Manchester Professor of Popular Culture, which is now as part of the Library’s British Pop Archive.
The exhibition takes a thematic and chronological journey through posters, magazines, books, promotional photographs and record sleeves, tracing the extraordinary contribution LGBTQ performers have made throughout those years.
Encounter pop and film stars from the 1950s and 60s like Little Richard and James Dean and learn about the queer managers and record producers behind the stars, such as Larry Parnes, Joe Meek and Brian Epstein.
Female artists and the lesbian story is explored through materials on Norma Tanega, Lesley Gore and Dusty Springfield and in magazines such as The Ladder.
A key moment in the exhibition is David Bowie’s frank 1972 admission that he was gay. Exhibition items then take visitors from the late 1970's disco scene of Sylvester and Saturday Night Fever into the1980s when gay pop stars like Boy George and Marilyn were pushing creative aesthetic norms.
LGBTQ pop was solidly positioned in the music press and the charts with an established a large fan base, both straight and queer. For many LGBTQ people during these decades, ‘pop’ was one of the few places where they might see their lives represented and reflected or even envisage an idea of how their world could be in a more tolerant, accepting future.
As part of Rylands125, this new exhibition gallery will open in celebration of the Library's 125th anniversary alongside a new Collections Gallery.
