Collection Highlights Case: Harry Martin Figurines
November 12 – December 14, 2025
CAM Green Campus
13 Poplar Street, Gloucester, MA
“Harry Martin moved to Gloucester from New York City in 1958 with poet Gerrit Lansing (1928-2018). The pair moved into Hammond Castle at the invitation of its owner, inventor John Hays Hammond, Jr. (1888 – 1965). Martin worked as the Castle chauffeur and groundskeeper. During this time Lansing and Martin collaborated on the production of SET, an important literary magazine. Although Hammond was married, his involvement in the New York theater scene led him to open the Castle as a safe space and gathering place for Queer writers and artists from New York including Martin and Lansing.
On display here are unassuming and fragile papier mache figures made by Harry Martin and given by him to his close friends, including Lansing, stained glass artist Helene Dorn, and others. To own them, and to display them in one’s home, was a mark of belonging to a certain network of Gloucester artists and writers during the 1970s and 1980s, a badge of membership in a Cape Ann group connected to New York, and the literary and artistic avant garde of its time.”
– David Rich, 2024