Domingo Francisco Juan Esteban "Dom" Orejudos, Secundo (July 1, 1933 – September 24, 1991), also widely known by the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

s Etienne and Stephen, was an openly gay artist, ballet dancer, and choreographer, best known for his ground-breaking masculine gay male erotica beginning in the 1950s. Along with artists

George Quaintance George Quaintance (June 3, 1902 – November 8, 1957) was an American artist, famous for his "idealized, strongly homoerotic" depictions of men in mid-20th-century physique magazines.Touko Laaksonen ("Tom of Finland") – with whom he became friends – Orejudos' leather-themed art promoted an image of gay men as strong and masculine, as an alternative to the then-dominant stereotype as weak and effeminate. With his first lover and business partner Chuck Renslow, Orejudos established many landmarks of late-20th-century gay male culture, including the Gold Coast bar, Man's Country Baths, the International Mr. Leather competition, Chicago's August White Party, and the magazines ''Triumph'', ''Rawhide'', and ''Mars''. He was also active and influential in the Chicago ballet community.

Ballet

Dom Orejudos was born in Chicago, where he attended McKinley High School, played violin in the school orchestra, served as concertmaster in the All Chicago High School orchestra, and competed on the gymnastics team. He studied drawing and art at the Art Institute, attended Ellis-DuBoulay School of Ballet on a scholarship, and then joined the Illinois Ballet Company, where he was principal dancer for nine years and became resident choreographer. After the Illinois Ballet closed in 1972, he created new choreography for another decade working with the Delta Festival Ballet company in New Orleans, LA. He created 18 ballets, staged by 20 regional ballet companies including Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Houston, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Omaha. He received three grants from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

. He staged his ballet ''Charioteer'' to inaugurate color broadcasts by Chicago station

WTTW WTTW (channel 11) is a PBS member television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by not-for-profit broadcaster Window to the World Communications, Inc., it is sister to commercial classical music radio station WFMT (98.7 FM). T ...

, which received three

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

s. He danced in the touring companies for ''

West Side Story ''West Side Story'' is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Inspired by William Shakespeare's play '' Romeo and Juliet'', the story is set in the mid ...

'', ''

The King and I ''The King and I'' is the fifth musical by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is based on Margaret Landon's novel '' Anna and the King of Siam'' (1944), which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the chil ...

'', and '' Song of Norway''.

Art

Orejudos attended the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

for a semester, but was frustrated by the approach taught there. When he was 20 years old, he was approached on Chicago's Oak Street Beach by Chuck Renslow (then 23), inviting him to model for photographs. They began a relationship. They also founded Kris Studios, a

physique photography Physique photography is a tradition of photography of nude or semi-nude (usually muscular) men which was largely popular between the early 20th century and the 1960s. Physique photography originated with the physical culture and bodybuilding movem ...

studio that took photos for gay magazines they published. The studio was named in part to honor transgender pioneer

Christine Jorgensen Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was an American trans woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery. She had a career as a successful actress, singer and re ...

. Orejudos began drawing commercially in 1953, when he was commissioned to draw erotic illustrations for ''

Tomorrow's Man ''Tomorrow's Man'' was a digest size physique magazine published from 1952 to 1971. It was one of the first physique magazines, debuting a year after Bob Mizer's ''Physique Pictorial''. It was the creation of Irvin ("Irv") Johnson, a Chicago gym ...

'', a magazine published by Irv Johnson, the owner of the gym where he worked out. He adopted the pen name ''Etienne'', the French equivalent of his middle name Esteban. He signed pen-and-ink drawings done in a slightly different style with ''Stephen'', the English equivalent of his middle name, to imply that the studio employed multiple artists. The latter kind of drawings became the basis for storybooks, among the first explicit homoerotic comics published. In 1958, Orejudos and Renslow bought the gym from Johnson, which they renamed Triumph Gymnasium and Health Studio, moving the photography studio to an upper floor. In 1963 they expanded their publishing enterprise to launch ''Mars'', an overtly leather-focused magazine. They also produced non-explicit gay-themed 16mm movie shorts, written and directed by Orejudos. After losing much of his archive in a plumbing flood in the 1970s, he gave the remainder of it to Target Studio, which became his primary publisher. In 1978, he had a joint gallery exhibition in San Francisco with erotic artist Al Shapiro (A. Jay). Orejudos' art was exhibited at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

, the

Chicago History Museum Chicago History Museum is the museum of the Chicago Historical Society (CHS). The CHS was founded in 1856 to study and interpret Chicago's history. The museum has been located in Lincoln Park since the 1930s at 1601 North Clark Street at the int ...

, and the School of the Art Institute's Roger Brown Study Collection Center.

Personal life

In addition to his relationship with Chuck Renslow, in 1969 Orejudos met Robert (Bob) Yuhnke at a leather party in Manhattan. They developed a long distance relationship until Bob moved to Chicago in 1979 to live with Orejudos. Together they established a residence in Eldorado Springs, Colorado, in 1980, where they resided until Orejudos' death from complications of AIDS. Orejudos continued to spend time in Chicago until his mother's death in 1984. Orejudos contracted pneumonia during travel with Bob in China before joining other members of a Sister City delegation from Boulder for a planned visit to Lhasa

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

in 1987. This illness revealed a diagnosis of AIDS which contributed to his declining health, leading to his death from

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ma ...

complications on September 24, 1991. Orejudos has been honored with three separate panels in the AIDS Memorial quilt.

Legacy

In 1993 Orejudos received the Forebear Award as part of the Pantheon of Leather Awards. In 2013 Orejudos was inducted into the Leather Hall of Fame. The Leather Archives and Museum has the largest collection of original works by Orejudos under the name “Etienne”. It has the Etienne auditorium, which has numerous murals done by Orejudos. He is among those commemorated in the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

References

External links

Lambiek Comiclopedia.Dom Orejudos Papers
a
the Newberry Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orejudos, Dom 1933 births 1991 deaths AIDS-related deaths in Colorado American erotic artists American male ballet dancers American comics artists Fetish artists Gay artists Gay male BDSM Gay male erotica artists Leather subculture Physique photography LGBT artists from the United States LGBT choreographers LGBT comics creators LGBT people from Illinois Pseudonymous artists LGBT Hispanic and Latino American people 20th-century LGBT people 20th-century American ballet dancers Inductees of the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame