Jim Burgess and Leo Bensemann at the beach

item details

NameJim Burgess and Leo Bensemann at the beach

ProductionUnknown; photographer; late 1920s

Classificationphotographic prints, black-and-white prints, gelatin silver prints

Materialssilver, photographic gelatin, photographic paper

Materials Summaryphotograph, gelatin silver print

Techniquesblack-and-white photography, photography

DimensionsImage: 78mm (width), 54mm (height)

Registration NumberO.051417

Credit lineGift of Christopher Dempsey and others, 2022

Overview

This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025) on page 54.

These [O.051462, O.050102] images come from a larger group of photographs that surfaced at auction in 2022, and depict the lives of a small group of young gay men in Christchurch in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Many of these photographs are of Leo Bensemann and Lawrence Baigent, who were partners for a time. Bensemann would become an important figure in the arts as a printer, typographer, publisher, editor and artist, and Baigent also became influential as a literary editor. The photographs show the men enjoying each other’s company —clowning around and displaying their affections at home, in backyards and on secluded beaches. The photographs seem innocent enough to us today, but they may have warranted processing by a gay, or gay-friendly acquaintance, for some discretion around such images was needed at the time.