Leica Gallery Los Angeles presents Anthony Friedkin’s “The Gay Essay”, a series of photographs made between 1969 and 1973. At the outset of the photographer’s long and productive career, “The Gay Essay” is a kaleidoscopic, personal response to gay life in Los Angeles and San Francisco at the dawn of the Gay Liberation movement. More than four decades later, it stands as both a profound record of historic change in our culture and an eloquent testament to Friedkin’s passion for the art of photography. The photographs are included in the permanent collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum and the de Young museum in San Francisco.

Only nineteen at the time, Friedkin accomplished a revealing set of photographs that detail the intimacy and love shared by gay couples, as well as portraits of gay political and religious activists, male prostitutes, lesbians, drag queens and trans individuals. He photographed the first Gay Pride Parade held in Hollywood, California.