Conditions Governing Use

Before reproducing or quoting from any materials, in whole or in part, permission must be obtained from the Special Collections Research Center, and the holder of the copyright, if not Swem Library.

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open to all researchers.

Preferred Citation

Dennis Loy Papers, Special Collections Research Center, William & Mary Libraries.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Acc. 2014.023 was received by Special Collections in January 2014.

Processing Information

Accessioned and minimally processed by Steven Bookman, University Archives Specialist, in March 2014. Fully Processed by Matthew Niendorf, Graduate Assisatnt, September 2014.

Biographical / Historical

Dennis Loy was born on February 20, 1939 in Chicago, Illinois and received his BFA in drawing and painting from Kalamazoo College (1957-1960),and his MFA in printmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1960-1965). In 1975, Loy received a research grant to study in India.

Throughout his career, Loy has worked in various art-related positions, including instructor of Art Education at Chicago State College from 1965-1966, assistant manager at Marlborough Prints in New York for 1967, and as Exhibition Specialist at the New York Public Library from 1968 to around 1979. In addition to being a curator, Loy also exhibited his work in such cities as New York and Chicago.

Scope and Contents

This collection contains letters, diaries, publications and other material collected by Dennis Loy, a gay artist who exhibited works in the Chicagoland area and New York City. Most of the letters were written to Loy by his cousin, American writer and journalist P.J. O'Rourke, and cover such topics as poetry, politics, drugs, art, and gay culture in the 1980s. In one of his diaries, Loy wrote about his trip to India in 1975 and describes the landscape and culture. The other diary is a travel diary and contains over sixty sketches of scences Loy encountered on a road trip rom Chicago to places such as the Upper Peninsula, Canada, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York. Collection also includes letters from a "David" and these talk mostly about David's experience as a homosexual in New York.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Authors, American--20th century
• Canada--Description and travel
• Chicago (Ill.)--Social life and customs
• Diaries
• Gay artists--United States
• India--Description and travel
• New York (N.Y.)--Description and travel
• Printed ephemera