While it can feel like the world is moving away from labels, naming something makes it more visible. Switzerland’s Kunstmuseum Basel is proving the power of specific language by exhibiting the compelling art made by and for gay and lesbian people immediately after the word “homosexual” was coined in 1869.
Homosexuals existed before there was a word for us, just like trees were a thing before humans began verbally describing them. But Kunstmuseum Basel’s exhibition ‘The First Homosexuals: The Birth of New Identities 1869–1939’ spotlights the early visibility of homosexuality once it was named, using a neutral, factual word – rather than a slur – to describe our neutral, factual state of existence. Language liberates.
The patterns in how a group of people present themselves tell us a lot about how they are seen and how they see themselves. In the First Homosexuals, the timeless artist-audience relationship, and homosexual-world relationship, are explored through around eighty paintings, works on paper, sculptures and photographs.
Before film and television, homosexuals were represented, and represented themselves, in more traditional art forms. How did we see ourselves when we were named? How did we perceive the world that saw us? How did homosexual artists communicate the watcher-watched relationship in art, from the moment we were made visible through language?
In Nasta Rojc’s 1912 Autoportret u lovačkom odijelu [self-portrait in a hunting outfit], she challenges the male gaze by depicting herself as a strong, agency-filled person. She’s outside the domestic sphere typically associated with women. There are no children or bare breasts in sight. Some curly hair escapes containment and is wild with the wind, foregrounding a threatening sky. She’s not scared of the weather… or you. Our focus is directed to her daring, bold stare. I hear ‘take me as I am, I’m not changing’. Her fingers are ready at the barrel of a gun. Rojc’s not prey. Accept her as she is or face the consequences. Homosexual resistance.
Nasta Rojc was a lesbian Croatian artist, born in 1883 and died in 1964. As a child, she was described as a bit of a misfit who didn’t enjoy school or playing with other children. She preferred hunting and horse riding. When Rojc declared herself an atheist as a teenager, her father had her educated at a convent school. She became depressed at fifteen and was sent to the seaside town of Kraljevica. In exchange for Rojc’s promise to learn cooking, her father allowed her to study art.
When Rojc’s father insisted that she marry, she entered into a Lavender Marriage with her friend, Branko Šenoa, who had previously inspired her to become an artist. Rojc’s affluent family afforded her privileges that working-class lesbians did not receive. Once she was married, Rojc’s father agreed to help her acquire a studio and assist her with living expenses.
Rojc lived with her female partner, Alexandrina Onslow, from the 1920s until Onslow’s death in 1950. Onslow was decorated in her own right: she was a British Army officer who served in the First World War, working in the Volunteer Hospital of Australia and driving for the French Red Cross. She later became a member of the Yugoslav Partisans, a communist-led anti-fascist resistance to the Axis powers (chiefly Nazi Germany) in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. Onslow and Rojc were one of the first lesbian couples to live openly in Zagreb, Croatia.
The word “homosexual” made us more visible. Naming illuminates the subject. It’s not a coincidence that documented lesbian history accelerated after 1869. Nasta Rojc is one of many homosexual artists whose art is being shown in The First Homosexuals: The Birth of New Identities 1869–1939 at Kunstmuseum Basel. The exhibition is available for viewing until the 2nd of August, 2026.
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