NEW YORK, NY.- The newly announced Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art has received major gifts in excess of $10 million. This constitutes the largest donation ever received by any LGBT arts organization.

A gift of $8.8M was made by Charles W. Leslie in memory of his long-time partner J. Fredric D. (Fritz) Lohman. Substantial ongoing distributions from this gift, which consists of stock in a New York real estate corporation, will support the Museum. This is joined by other substantial donations including $1.5 million dollars from the Estate of Marion Pinto, an artist and long-time friend and supporter of Leslie-Lohman.

Jonathan D. Katz, President of the Leslie Lohman Museum’s Board of Directors remarked, “Charles Leslie is one of the few individuals in New York with both the capacity, and the political will, to rectify the silence around gay/lesbian art and artists in New York’s major museums, by setting up our own gay and lesbian art museum. We’re excited to be presenting exhibitions that finally acknowledge important artists like Paul Thek fully in the round, and this major gift will enable us to continue to exhibit high quality shows for a long time to come.”

Charles Leslie, who along with his partner of 48 years, Fritz Lohman (1922-2009), launched the first gay art space in New York in their SoHo loft in 1969. Charles and Fritz were also major players in the establishment of SoHo, first, as an arts community and ultimately as a trend setting commercial hub. In 1990 they co-founded of the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, an organization which has grown exponentially ever since and which has recently been proclaimed a museum by the New York State Board of Regents.

The product of Deadwood, South Dakota, where he was born (1933) and raised, The Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts, The U.S. Occupation Army in Heidelberg, Germany and the Sorbonne in Paris, Leslie has spent great swatches of time in Europe, Asia and Africa and in the couple’s home in the medina of Marrakech in Morocco.

He wrote the first book in English on the great late 19th-early 20th century German photographer of the male nude, the baron Wilhelm von Gloeden, and has contributed numerous articles and monographs to various publications including “And Lo! The Old Gods! Restored Interpretations of Old Myths.” He lives in New York City and Marrakech, Morocco.