Schofield drew for Chanel, Chloé, Halston, Estée Lauder and Diane Von Furstenberg and spent time in Greenport in a home shared with his partner, Frank McIntosh. (Credit: Tara Smith)

New art exhibit in Greenport explores untold
queer stories of the North Fork

A new art exhibit in Greenport seeks to tell an exuberant, untold piece of local history through illustration.“Fashion: A Hidden History” is now on display at the Natali/Keyes gallery on Main Street and will be shown through Aug. 15.The collection features drawings and collages by Jerry Schofield, a fashion illustrator and artist who was commissioned by iconic brands and designers including Lord and Taylor and Henri Bendel, where he met his partner, Frank McIntosh.The two lived in a majestic captain’s 17th-century mansion along Main Road in Greenport, according to acclaimed art historian and curator Alison Gingeras, who organized the exhibit at the Greenport gallery.“At first glance, without knowing all of the history, it looks like contemporary art,” Gingeras said in a recent interview at the gallery, where the walls were recently painted bright pink. “They look like the work of Karen Kilimnick or other painters I’ve worked with before who quote this style. There’s this campy citation in the work.”The evocative ink drawings, collages and gouache paintings are a peek into Schofield’s influence on the fashion world, but also a glimpse at the hidden history of artists obscured by the homophobia of their era.