In the late 1980s, Bruce Voeller of the Mariposa Education and Research Foundation commissioned Bachardy to create a series of portraits of a dozen gay rights leaders. The series includes studies of Elaine Noble, Frank Kameny, Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin, Morris Kight, Charles Bryden, James Foster, Bruce Voeller, David B. Goodstein, Jean O'Leary, Reverend Troy Perry, and Barbara Gittings. In 1995, after the death of Voeller and the closure of the Mariposa foundation, the series was donated to the Human Sexuality Collection at Cornell University Library.

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Among Bachardy's best known works are the frequently reproduced drawings and paintings of Isherwood that span some thirty years and capture the novelist in an amazing variety of moods; the famous likeness of W. H. Auden--his forehead a mass of wrinkles--that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London; the haunting image of a haggard, aged Bette Davis, her downturned mouth held as though set in stone; and the intense and controversial painting of former California Governor Jerry Brown that hangs in the California State House.

Bachardy's portraits are not flattering--in fact, they occasionally seem cruel in their honesty--but in sure lines and deft strokes they convey with authenticity and accuracy the personalities of his sitters. Indeed, they are psychological portraits as much as they are physical likenesses. Almost Oriental in their economy of line, Bachardy's drawings distill the essences of his subjects, even as they also constitute a record of his own experience.

Bachardy's art is the subject of a short film by Academy Award-winning director Terry Sanders, The Eyes of Don Bachardy (2005). His relationship with Isherwood is the subject of Guido Santi and Tina Mascara's luminous documentary, Chris & Don: A Love Story (2008).

After Stonewall, American gay male art underwent a radical transformation as artists came out and began to treat gay themes openly and directly.

Contemporary Art, which designates new currents in art since 1970, is identified with postmodernism; during this period an art addressing gay and lesbian identity emerged.

The glbtq history of Los Angeles, the U.S.'s second largest metropolis, is replete with cultural, social, and political firsts.

Patronage--the sponsorship of artists and the commissioning of works from them--has remained a significant factor in the creation of queer visual culture in the modern era.

Throughout much of history, the nude male figure was virtually the only subject that could be used to articulate homoerotic desire in publicly displayed works of art, as well as those works of art intended for private "consumption."

One of the most accomplished poets of the twentieth century, W. H. Auden found that his gayness led him to new insights into the universal impulse to love and enlarged his understanding of all kinds of relationships.

A pioneer in the American gay rights movement, Barbara Gittings worked tirelessly within the American Library Association to make material with glbtq content more accessible to the reading public.

Publisher David Goodstein transformed The Advocate into the leading American gay newsmagazine.

One of the liveliest and most versatile visual artists of his generation, David Hockney not only has helped break down resistance to the erotic gaze directed at the male body but also has presented gay male couples in domestic--rather than sensational or sexual--images.

A major Anglo-American novelist and a pioneer in the gay liberation movement, Christopher Isherwood created gay characters whose homosexuality is a simple given, an integral part of the wholeness of personality and an emblem of their common humanity.

One of the founding fathers of the American gay rights movement, Frank Kameny helped radicalize the homophile movement, preparing the way for the mass movement for equality initiated by the Stonewall Riots of 1969.

Los Angeles activist Morris Kight, a determined and courageous--if sometimes eccentric--fighter for glbtq rights, worked for decades in the struggle for equality.

Anglo-American stage and screen actor and director Charles Laughton scored many triumphs in a distinguished career, but nevertheless suffered for much of his life from self-loathing and internalized homophobia.

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin were among the founders of a lesbian liberation movement that developed and enlarged the very definition of lesbianism.

American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's controversial images typically combine rigorously formal composition and design with extreme subject matter.

James Merrill's significance as a gay writer lies in his deliberate use of a personal relationship to fuel his poetry.

The bisexual novelist Anaïs Nin is best known for her sexually frank diaries and the erotica published after her death.

A dedicated lesbian activist in the early years of the gay liberation movement, Elaine Noble made history as the first openly gay candidate elected to a state-level office when she won a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1974.

Jean O'Leary devoted her life to activism for gay and lesbian rights.

Highly respected British tenor Sir Peter Pears was the life partner of composer Benjamin Britten, who wrote leading roles in many of his operas for him.

In his personal life, American actor Anthony Perkins often seemed as tortured as the troubled characters he played on film, hiding--and perhaps despising--his true nature while desperately seeking happiness and "normality."

The multifaceted Gore Vidal is important in the gay literary heritage because of the straightforwardness with which he pursued gay themes and included gay characters in his work.

American activist and scientist Bruce Voeller was a leader in both the gay rights movement and the fight against AIDS.