Illustrator, creator of queer erotic art, activist in the WhK (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäre Kommittee).
Honorary grave of the city of Berlin
Friedhof Heerstraße (cemetery)
Berlin-Westend
Grave location: 8-C-54-EW
Honorary grave of the city of Berlin since 1965 (renewed 2018)
About:
Marcus Behmer
Like many radicalized by the ruinous and absurd public and legal persecution of Oscar Wilde, Marcus Behmer became a member of WhK (Scientific Humanitarian Committee) in 1903 upon moving to Berlin at the age of 24. He was soon to become a sought-after illustrator, with a very distinct style, in his early work, somewhat reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley.
In addition to gaining great popularity producing for a broader audience, Behmer’s work includes a vast array of homoerotic graphics.
As in the case of many early 20th Century European artists, critical artists in particular, the breadth and depth of Marcus Behmer’s work can only be reconstructed from fragments. Large portions of Behmer’s work have been lost, beset by judicial “vice” clamp-downs (often referred to as a Nazi persecution of gay men, though the scope of events went far beyond targeting men who have sex with men), and Fascist cultural purges in the 1930s, the incineration of northern Europe’s cultural and population centers in the early 1940s, and the reactionary social and political climate of the first two post WWII decades.
Several institutes preserve Behmer’s legacy, including Berlin’s Schwules* Museum.
Babewyn 