ShowQueen Gallery Embraces Pop, Glamour, and Camp
by Steve Desroches
Live performance is an ephemeral art form. That’s in part what makes it so thrilling. Each show is unique, never to be seen again. You were either there or you weren’t. Recordings and film footage can capture it for posterity’s sake, but there’s nothing like being there witnessing the intensity of being in the present, in the now, of being part of that ancient bond between an audience and a performer on a stage. But there’s another aspect to the performing arts that influence and inspires visual art or becomes the very subject. For every story told in the spotlight, there are a myriad more from backstage. Art that tells those stories is at the center of what ShowQueen Gallery is all about. Owned and curated by self-described “theater nerd” Tom Harvey, ShowQueen Gallery is full of art and collectables capturing the glamour and sparkle of Broadway and Old Hollywood with special attention to iconic divas and a whole lot of pop culture.
“All the pieces in here tell a story,” says Harvey. “Everything in here brings me joy.”
Harvey has had a lifelong love affair with the theater. He and his husband, Manny Correia attend almost 70 live shows a year throughout the Northeast, with the two jetting to New York City next week to take in performances of Sting’s new musical The Last Ship and New York City Center’s run of La Cage Aux Folles, with a pit stop prior at the Provincetown Theater to see Prisontown by Lee Osario. They have running subscriptions to theaters in New England and New York that have them in the sacred darkness of a theater weekly year-round. But Harvey’s latest passion began in 2015 when he stumbled upon an auction that included seven lithograph prints of watercolor painting done by the legendary theatrical force Tommy Tune. And then he was off and running collecting photography, prints, and original art work featuring or done by Broadway actors and other theater professionals. That collection was the seed that bloomed into ShowQueen Gallery.
Harvey sits at the desk of his East End gallery district space beaming with excitement as his inaugural season begins. A 7×7 Andy Warhol lithograph of Liza Minnelli is behind him just to his left while a vintage photographic portrait of Frank Sinatra in front the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas is to his right. The sounds of Judy Garland singing “The Man That Got Away” fill the air. There’s almost always a selection from his vinyl collection playing, explains Harvey. There are so many eyes of the famous from stage and screen around the gallery one might feel like they’ve just won a Tony Award themselves. In addition to featuring his own collection, Harvey has assembled seven artists from Provincetown and beyond to represent, planning six shows from July through September showcasing the work of Michael Guy, Justin “Squigs” Robertson, Alexandra Frangiosa, Wayne Hollowell, Michael Kushner, Brian Strumwasser, and Richard Prescott.
Many will recognize Hollowell’s bright and splashy portrait paintings of subjects like Joan Crawford, Jane Mansfield, Divine, Elizabeth Taylor, Pia Zadora, and more from the Post Office Café and Cabaret. There’s a gorgeous and heartbreaking photograph by Kushner catching a backstage moment of Broadway stars Darren Criss, Andrew Rannells, and the late Gavin Creel that clearly struck a chord as there’s a red dot next to the title card. And there are cross-stitch portraits of RuPaul and Dolly Parton by Strumwasser, a make-up artist and hair stylist on Broadway who creates the needle and thread images while sitting backstage between costume changes.
“That’s 49,800 stitches of RuPaul right there,” laughs Harvey.
Indeed, there is a deep backstory to each piece and every title card also contains a QR code to access the full biography of the work. But Harvey has been surprised by how many stories people bring with them to the gallery. Photos of Patti LuPone elicit memories of folks who saw her in Evita, Anything Goes or Sweeney Todd. Images of Angela Lansbury offer a teachable moment as some only know her from Murder, She Wrote or as the voice of Mrs. Potts in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, with no knowledge of her epic stage career. There’s sharing a chuckle over a poster of Cole Escola as Mary Todd Lincoln on a bottle of Rush poppers used to sell rush tickets for the smash hit Oh, Mary! And there’s a gorgeous painting of Diana Ross circa 1972 that had a recent patron in tears as she shared a story that people always said her late mother looked just like her. The people depicted in the gallery are often so tightly woven into the narrative of all our lives they can feel intensely personal.
“I have been really heartened by the stories that come to mind for people,” says Harvey. “It’s just the stories. It just brings up so much for people. It’s just so infectious.”
ShowQueen Gallery is located at 432 Commercial St, Provincetown. For more information call 508.470.1365 or visit showqueengallery.com.
