Chuck Arnett (1928–1988), painter and former Broadway dancer, arrived in San Francisco in 1962 as lead dancer in the touring company of Bye Bye Birdie before painting the mural inside the Tool Box bar that Life magazine featured in its June 26, 1964 issue, five years before Stonewall. Called “Lautrec in Leather,” Arnett went on to create posters and murals for the Stud, the Red Star Saloon, the No Name, and the Ambush. Jack Fritscher, who met Arnett in 1970, wrote “Artist Chuck Arnett: His Life/Our Times,” collected in Leather-Folk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice (edited by Mark Thompson) and referenced in Drummer 134 (October 1989).

Fritscher’s forthcoming book, Founding Folsom Street: Chuck Arnett, Art in Bars, and the Leather Renaissance 1962–1981, traces Arnett’s central role in the birth of South of Market’s leather bar culture, from the Tool Box mural through the Golden Age of the 1970s. The book is planned for release Fall/Winter 2026.

Founding Folsom Street:
Chuck Arnett, Art in Bars, and the Leather Renaissance, 1962–1981
Fall/Winter 2026

Drummer Magazine #134 October 1989
Leather-Folk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice edited by Mark Thompson
“Artist Chuck Arnett: His Life/Our Times“

Search “Arnett” for References In:

• Drummer Magazine (search)
• Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer (search)
• Profiles in Gay Courage (search)
• Inventing the Gay Gaze (search)
• Gay Pioneers (search)
• Folsom Street Blues by Jim Stewart (search FlipBook)
• Life and Times of Larry Townsend (search)
• The Leatherman’s Handbook 25th Anniversary (Introduction)