Don Herron’s Tub Shots – Part III

Three years ago, I posted two collections of artist / photographer Don Herron’s Tub Shots, a series of photographs featuring the famous and near famous posing in their bathtubs. This coincided with an exhibition of 65 of the images at the Daniel Cooney Gallery here in NYC. My blog posts (Pt. 1 and Pt. II) still garner a considerable amount of traffic, so I thought I would share more of these photos – ones that didn’t make it into those original posts and others that have resurfaced since that time.

Writer/Performer/Filmmaker John Heys as Diana Vreeland (1992). Looking back at the photo in 2018, Heys commented, “Simply put, as Diana Vreeland often said… ‘A bit of alright!’ Of course that is how I felt in my divine penthouse bath.”

Queer San Francisco performer Harmodious, aka Anthony J. Rogers (1947-1992) was photographed in 1978 at Fey Way Gallery in the same tub used for the portraits of his sometime boyfriend Robert Opel, and gallery employee Christine McCabe.

When McCabe’s photo was published in the 1980 Village Voice layout, she sued Herron and the newspaper. Although the signature on the model release was questionable, McCabe admitted that Herron did tell her that he wanted to publish a book of the photos. The suit was settled with McCabe receiving an undisclosed sum.

When the Village Voice Online edition posted an article about the Daniel Cooney gallery exhibition in 2018, they chose to post just 3 of the 23 photos from the original layout: Robert Mapplethorpe and McCabe’s photos were 2 of them. Whether or not this was a random occurrence or a belated turn of the screw towards McCabe, the photos have since been removed.

Everett Quinton (1952-2023) was an actor, director, & artistic director of the Ridiculous Theatre Company. “I’m not sure if Don was a friend of a friend or how he got my number. I only know that he asked me if I would like to be photographed in the bathtub and that seemed fun and I said yes. I remember the smell of the chlorine in my nose for days after the shoot as I laid still under the water for a while… waiting for the bubbles to go away so it would look creepy. I love the picture very much and I remember Don standing on the sides of the bathtub to get the shot. And I remember it was a fun experience.”

Pat Loud (1926-2021) was the matriarch of the Loud family, subject of the first reality series on American television. She later recalled that she only agreed to Don Herron’s request for a photo shoot if her friend and interior designer Richard Ridge (1928-2021) posed as well. NYC (1978)

Cornelius Conboy was the owner of 8BC, an East Village nightclub, performance space and gallery. “Don was gloriously set in his own universe yet welcomed everyone to join. I see that the photo is dated 1987 yet am certain it was taken earlier than that. 1986 at the latest. I lived in Italy in 1987 and that bathtub is from my apartment above 8BC, when Donald’s famous mural “Civilization Teeters” hung above the bar.

“My memory is that while he was very meticulous about the lighting he was rather laissez-faire about posing. There was a vase of those bodega flowers that last forever after they dry out – baby’s breath and purple statice. I’ve always considered myself a romantic and here I seem to be channeling my best inner Ophelia.”

Fashion designer Geoffrey Mac‘s (unintentional?) homage to the “Tub Shots” series, as recently posted on Instagram.

See Also:
Don Herron’s Tub Shots part I
Don Herron’s Tub Shots part II
Kenn Duncan After Dark
Gay Times #69 (1978)
Blueboy 1980: Gays of NYC
John Waters in Blueboy Magazine (1977)
New York City: In Touch For Men (1979)