Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1970, he was stationed in San Francisco as a medic. After being honorably discharged in 1972, Baker remained in the city and began to participate in the activism that would define the rest of his life and artistic career.
Examining how Baker blurred the lines between artist and activist, protester and performer, this online exhibition emphasizes his intuitive understanding of the ways art can serve as a powerful means to address political and social issues.
By exploring the less well-known dimensions of Baker’s wide-ranging oeuvre, we place the rainbow flag back into the unexpected and evocative context of his exceptional life as an activist and artist.
Gilbert Baker sewing the mile-long rainbow flag for the 1994 New York City Stonewall 25 Pride Parade. Photograph by Mick Hicks, used with permission, all rights reserved; Gilbert Baker Flag Collection (2002-41), GLBT Historical Society.
In 1978, San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker conceived a new symbol to represent the LGBTQ community: the iconic rainbow flag, first displayed at that year’s Gay Freedom Day Parade.
The San Francisco Gay Freedom Day decoration committee allocated $1,000 to create two rainbow flags for the event.
Baker recalled that the funds were spent as follows: “Five hundred dollars for 1,000 yards of muslin, 58 inches wide. Three hundred dollars for 10 pounds of natural dye in eight colors, and 100 pounds of salt and ash. And the rest for art supplies.”
Replica of the original eight-color rainbow flag design. In 1998, Baker recreated his eight-color design using identical construction methods for the 20th anniversary of the flag’s creation. Dyed cotton muslin on white muslin backing, Gilbert Baker Flag Collection (2002-41), GLBT Historical Society
Segment of one of the original eight-color rainbow flags. In 2021 the Gilbert Baker Foundation donated a recently discovered segment of one of the original 1978 eight-color rainbow flags to the GLBT Historical Society. The flag segment is now part of the Gilbert Baker Collection (2017-18), GLBT Historical Society. Photograph by Matthew Leifheit, courtesy of the Gilbert Baker Foundation. Click here to more about this new acquisition.
One of the original eight-color flags flying at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco during Gay Freedom Day 1978. This hybrid of the rainbow and American flags was designed by Gilbert Baker’s close friend Lynn Segerblom. Photograph by Crawford Wayne Barton; Crawford Wayne Barton Collection (1993-11), GLBT Historical Society.
The flags featured eight colored stripes, and Baker assigned symbolic meaning to each:
RED - life
ORANGE - healing
YELLOW - the sun
GREEN - nature
TURQUOISE - art and magic
BLUE - serenity
PURPLE - the spirit
The pink and turquoise stripes were dropped the following year due to cost and display considerations, resulting in the better-known six-color design.
After a quarter-century in San Francisco, Gilbert Baker moved to New York City in 1994. He remained deeply devoted to his creative work linking art and social justice, traveling widely to organize and participate in cultural activities related to the rainbow flag. Baker resided in New York for the last two decades of his life.
For New York City Pride in 1994, Baker created a mile-long rainbow flag that was carried down First Avenue in Manhattan. During the parade, Baker used scissors to cut segments from the flag to be rushed to Fifth Avenue for an impromptu protest march in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the headquarters of New York City’s anti-gay Catholic archdiocese.
The mile-long rainbow flag being carried down First Avenue in New York City. At the bottom of the image is the segment of the flag cut for the St. Patrick’s Cathedral protest. Photograph by Mick Hicks; used with permission, all rights reserved.
Advertisement for volunteers needed to carry the mile-long flag. New York City Stonewall 25 Pride Parade, 1994. Gilbert Baker Collection (2017-18), GLBT Historical Society.
Gilbert Baker wearing a white sequined dress (right). He and other protestors triumphantly march the cut pieces of the mile-long flag past St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Photograph by Charles Beal; used with permission, all rights reserved.
In 2003, Gilbert Baker surpassed his previous record by creating the longest rainbow flag to date, a 1.25-mile-long example for Key West Pride in Key West, Florida. The flag was carried the entire length of Key West’s Duval Street from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the original flag’s creation. Photograph courtesy of the Key West Gay and Lesbian Community Center, Inc.; Gilbert Baker Collection (2017-18), GLBT Historical Society.
Gilbert Baker presents President Barack Obama with an original, hand-dyed cotton rainbow flag on June 9, 2016. In his thank-you letter to Baker, President Obama affirmed, “I am proud to stand alongside the countless activists like you who spoke up and came out, blazed trails for others and pushed us closer to our founding ideal of equality for all. Because of this hard work, we now live in an America where all marriages and families are recognized as equal under the law.” Photograph courtesy of the Barack Obama Presidential Library.
In addition to his early involvement in the gay-rights movement, Gilbert Baker participated in protests against the Vietnam War and supported marijuana legalization efforts. He also learned how to sew.
Over the next four decades, Baker melded his artistic gifts with his devotion to justice, employing a range of media and approaches—including sewing, painting, design and performance—to advocate for positive social change.
Greeting card featuring Gilbert Baker posing in his nun’s habit as Sister Chanel 2001 while smoking a cigarette. The inside of the card reads “Let’s keep Christ in Christmas!” Baker infuriated the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence by posing for this postcard without permission, resulting in a lawsuit for trademark infringement and his expulsion from the organization. Comstock Cards, Inc., 1987; Gilbert Baker Collection (2017-18), GLBT Historical Society.
Gilbert Baker with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. In 1981, Baker became a novice with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a San Francisco–based LGBTQ nonprofit organization and protest group. He adopted the name “Sister Chanel 2001.” Posing with other Sisters, Baker is at the very top right, wearing rainbow eyeshadow and a white veil. Photograph by Marie Ueda; Marie Ueda Collection (2006-12), GLBT Historical Society.
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In 1990, Baker shocked spectators at that year’s International Lesbian and Gay Freedom Day Parade with his “Pink Jesus” protest. He marched wearing a loincloth, covered head-to-toe in pink body paint and splayed on a crucifix emblazoned with the sign “Martyrs for Art.”
“‘Pink Jesus’ was a protest of many things I was pissed off about [in 1990]. I was protesting Senator Jesse Helms, the North Carolina homophobe trying to kill the National Endowment for the Arts because of its support of gay art. … I was also fed up with the [San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay] Freedom Day organizers, who controlled every aspect of the event. They had grown more conservative, asking drag and leather marchers to cool it. More censorship.”
Gilbert Baker as Pink Jesus (center) flanked by Scarlot Harlot (right) and Sister Sadie, Sadie the Rabbi Lady (left). San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Freedom Day Parade, 1990. Photograph by Robert Pruzan; Robert Pruzan Papers (1998-36), GLBT Historical Society.
Contact sheet with various 1990 International Lesbian and Gay Freedom Day Parade images. Photograph by Robert Pruzan; Robert Pruzan Papers (1998-36), GLBT Historical Society.
I clicked my pink high heels three times, adjusted my American-flag loincloth and crashed the front of the parade. … On top of the assemblage was a chartreuse note proclaiming, ‘MARTYRS FOR ART.’… Fred [Herzog] and Jerry [Schreyer] unfurled my banner, which read, ‘NOT SPONSORED BY JESSE HELMS.’ It stretched out, curb to curb, 75 feet wide. I could hear gasps of outrage. This was a direct slam of the parade committee.”
Describing his fashion in a 2017 interview posthumously published in the Castro Courier in the summer of 2018, Gilbert Baker contended, “You choose not to wear the uniform of the oppressor. No one should wear them, only look at them. They’re empty, perfect, ready and waiting, just like this horror show of a presidency is waiting to do God knows what.”
Gilbert Baker during an interview with ABC television for the series “When We Rise,” February 2017. His costume is thought to be one of the last he created before his death. Photograph by Tony Taylor, used with permission, all rights reserved.
Baker responded to the 2016 election of President Donald Trump by creating adaptations of the uniforms worn by homosexual prisoners in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. The pink triangle patch sewn on the front of the uniform identified the prisoner as homosexual. Prior to the creation of the rainbow flag, the triangle was probably the best-known international symbol of the LGBTQ community. Baker updated and personalized the design by displaying his eight-color rainbow—a more positive symbol—on the back of the garment.
Statue of Liberty–inspired costume designed by Gilbert Baker. It consists of a floor-length blue-sequined gown, sequined crown and sequined torch. Gilbert Baker Collection (2017-18), GLBT Historical Society.
Gay Betsy Ross costume designed by Gilbert Baker. It consists of a floor-length gown, brimmed hat and bow. Gilbert Baker Collection (2017-18), GLBT Historical Society.
From the two eight-color originals in the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade and the 400 six-color flags displayed along Market Street the following year, the rainbow flag has become universally identified with LGBTQ rights, power and politics and is used in Pride celebrations around the globe.
Gilbert Baker recalled that at New York City Pride in 1994, “Everywhere you saw the Rainbow Flag—on white T-shirts, on hats, on scarves, on every conceivable garment and accessory, much of it homemade.”
From trinkets, clothing, jewelry and banners to commercially produced merchandise and memorabilia, the rainbow flag has been applied to an infinite number of objects and adapted for virtually any decorative use.
“Don’t Stop the Rainbow” poster designed and screen printed by Gilbert Baker in 1979. “Robert [Opel] had also funded a silk-screened protest poster I made for Freedom Day. It showed the City Hall dome coming off and the message DON’T STOP THE RAINBOW.” Gilbert Baker Flag Collection (2002-41), GLBT Historical Society.
“Love, Gilbert” (2019) is a video compilation created by Gilbert Baker’s longtime friend Vincent Guzzone incorporating archival footage and photographic stills that document the vitality of Baker’s life and unique identity as an artist and advocate for social justice.
The video includes photographs by Daniel Nicoletta, Mick Hicks and Mark Rennie, as well as images from the Robert Pruzan and Marie Ueda photographic collections held by the GLBT Historical Society archives.
The archival footage includes a scene of Harvey Milk with the original rainbow flags in the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade, filmed by Harold Call, courtesy of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries; several interviews with Baker, including a segment from the PBS series “In the Life,” courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archive; and footage of Baker presenting President Barack Obama with a rainbow flag on June 9, 2016, courtesy of the Barack Obama Presidential Library.
Jeremy Prince is the Collections Specialist at the San Diego History Center in San Diego, California. He began volunteering at the newly opened GLBT Historical Society Museum in 2011. From 2014 to 2019, he served as the society’s director of exhibitions and museum operations. Prince holds an M.A. in early modern European history and museum studies from San Francisco State University.
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The contents of this exhibition may not be reproduced in whole or part without written permission.
