Artist’s Muse: Ted Starkowski

Although photographer George Platt Lynes passed away of lung cancer at age 48 in 1955, it took another 30 years before the majority of his male nude photographs were celebrated and widely released. Virtually every collection of his work now features photos of a model named Ted Starkowski. His nude images are featured on the covers of several collections of Lynes’ work – in solo shots or posed with Mel Fellini:

So who was Ted Starkowski?

Lynes biographer David Leddick wrote:

Ted Starkowski worked the streets. Hustling by night, he regaled Bernard Perlin and George Platt Lynes with his adventures while he posed for them during the day. They created unique images with his cat-like face and lithe body.

Perlin later recalled; “He looked like an old tomcat – you know, after the battle. But he just loved the way he looked…. he was a star whore, he aimed for people with money and he got it.”

(Above) George Platt Lynes photographed Ted Starkowski flanked by Bernard Perlin’s sketches.

Teodor Francis Starkowski was born in Hartford, Connecticut on April 4, 1927- the eighth child of Polish immigrants. When he was 6 years old, Ted was critically injured when he was struck by a car in front of his family’s home. He eventually made a full recovery, but the incident would foreshadow another auto accident forty-four years later.

His Army registration in September of 1945 indicates that he had attended three years of high school and was working at St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield.

After his stint in the military he relocated to New York City, where he became a favorite subject for Lynes and his circle of artist friends, including Paul Cadmus and Jared French.

(Above) Six images of Ted Starkowski by Jared French.

Thomas D. Baynes of The Univeristy of Western Ontario wrote extensively of one particular George Platt Lynes 1954 photograph in his thesis More than a Spasm, Less than a Sign: Queer Masculinity in American Visual Culture, 1915-1955:

Few other photographs by Lynes do as much to cast the model as an actor. In his tight jeans, bulging conspicuously at the crotch, fisherman-rib sweater worn without an undershirt, and workaday watchman’s cap relegated to the status of an ornament, Starkowski looks like a longshoreman snatched from the imagination of Tom of Finland … Lynes’s studio provides only the minimum furniture required to support Starkowski in a posture that manages to be solicitous and pensive at the same time, welcoming an evaluating view despite being absorbed in thought.

This photograph extends rough trade as a portable structure of fantasy that discovers erotic opportunities in ambiguities of dress and pose…. Evidently, Starkowski had a knack for acting like a straight man, or at least like a fantasy version thereof.

*Ted Starkowski as drawn by Paul Cadmus (Male Nude, TS5, 1954)*

*A reader sent a photo of this Paul Cadmus drawing titled “Ted Reading” – posted with permission.*

Another model who posed for many of the same artists was fellow ex-military man Chuck Howard, George Platt Lynes’ live-in boyfriend. After their split in January, 1951, Howard and Starkowski became involved in what David Leddick described as “a tempestuous affair.” The couple were photographed together on Fire Island while vacationing with Paul Cadmus, Jared and Margaret French: artists who called their collective photography work PaJaMa, an acronym of the first letters of their first names. See more of their work here.

The year after George Platt Lynes’ death, Starkowski was photographed by Carl Van Vechten. These photos are dated April 3, 1956:

Thanks to a wealthy benefactor, Starkowski traveled extensively in the second half of the 1950’s. Perlin recalled; “There was this old boy who picked him up on 42nd Street. Ted enthralled him – kept him drunk and kept him out of money, with which Ted bought diamonds, which he wore. Both hands glittered with diamonds.”

Leddick relays a story of Starkowski showing off a new diamond ring to artist George Tooker. Asking if he thought it was too big. Tooker replied “Yes, it is too large for a woman to wear.”

The Paul Cadmus drawing on the left shows Starkowski at age 36 in 1963.

And then… the trail goes dark for the next 14 years. If more images or information come to light, I will update this post. What we do know is that on Friday May 13, 1977, Ted Starkowski was leaving a New York City bar when he was struck and killed by a car. He was 50 years old.

An obituary ran in the Hartford Courant the following Tuesday, May 17th. He was buried in Mount Saint Benedict Cemetery in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

It was a sad end to a man who had inspired many artists.

Bernard Perlin recalled, “Despite his nefariousness, he did good in the art world. My drawings are comparatively negligible, but many of George’s photographs are just absolutely wonderful.”