Crawford Barton (1943–1993), photographer, documented San Francisco’s Castro Street gay culture from the late 1960s through the 1980s, founding his own studio, Arts Unlimited, and publishing the 1976 photo book Beautiful Men. His 1973 photograph of Harvey Milk on Castro Street is held in the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, and his 1977 image “Castro Street Scene, Two Couples” has appeared in the films Gay USA, The Butch Factor, and We Were Here. Jack Fritscher interviewed Barton on October 2, 1990, published as “San Francisco Photographer of Beautiful Men” in Inventing the Gay Gaze; Barton died of AIDS-related illness in 1993, the same year Mark Thompson edited his posthumous photo book, Days of Hope.

Inventing the Gay Gaze
“Crawford Barton: San Francisco Photographer of Beautiful Men“