Alonzo Hanagan

• Name — Lon Hanagan • Birth Name — Alonzo James Hanagan • Born — December 20, 1911 • Birthplace — Lexington, Massachusetts, U.S. • Died — December 4, 1999 (aged 87) • Place of death — Lenox Hill Hospital, Manhattan, New York, U.S. • Movement — Physique photography

• Illustration — Teenager Lon (right) with his childhood friend Ralph Ehmke Alonzo James "Lon" Hanagan was born in 1911 in Lexington, Massachusetts, the oldest child and only son of Frank and Lizzie Hanagan's three children. He had two younger sisters, Marry and Betty. The Hannagans were a religious family and although very close, it was a strict family environment. The family had a piano and Lon played on it, imitating an organist at the church, which the family attended every Sunday. He started to work as a teen boy, with his first job delivering fish from a local seller. In addition to playing music, he wrote and published some songs himself as a teenager. His first published composition was "A Bunch of Good Fellows Are We", written for a musical, performed by "Good Fellows" group. He started to play piano and organ on a weekly radio program in Lexington at the age of sixteen. He also performed in local churches and events. He moved with his family in 1928 to Lockport, New York, when his father was transferred to the Jefferson Union Plant. Lon graduated from high school in Lockport in 1929. In Lockport he worked as an organist at movie theaters. He befriended a local boy, Ralph Ehmke, who became his first boyfriend. Lon developed an interest in photography as a teenager, with his parents buying him a Kodak Box camera. He learned darkroom skills in a Boy Scout camp in New Hampshire. His early photographs were images of his family, friends, and endless snapshots of Ralph Ehmke. In camp he also made his first series of male nudes, photographing one of his adult camp counselors fresh from the shower.

Lon moved to New York City in 1936. He studied music at Juilliard School and for some time worked as an organist at Radio City Music Hall. He rented his first apartment at 617 West 113th Street. He also continued to write and publish music during those years.

Hanagan's health declined in the early Nineties. He died in Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City on December 4, 1999, after a brief hospitalization. His body was cremated and ashes were scattered at his mother's grave in Lockport.

Despite Hanagan being inactive in photography in the latter part of his life, his photographs were distributed in exhibitions in the United States. Some of his images were exhibited as part of the group exhibition "Photoflexion" in Los Angeles Centre for Photographic studies in 1981, with images of Muybridge and Mapplethorpe. The exhibition attracted the attention of St. Martin's Press, which published its catalog as a book in 1984. Lon's work was also exhibited in several exhibitions in the Nineties, including "L'homme at Home: Male Nudes – 19th Century to Present" in Throckmorton Fine Art gallery in New York City; "Male", curated by Vince Aletti in Wessel+O'Connor Gallery; "Bonding" in David Allen Gallery in Venice, California.