American artist REX was (possibly) BOTD in 1943. He is thought to have been born in New York, and was adopted as a baby after being abandoned by his birth parents. While in his teens, he became the protégé of a fashion designer, who paid for him to attend the School of Visual Arts. He became a commercial artist in the 1960s, working in New York, Paris and London, where he became an expert cruiser of public toilets, later describing his delight in discovering “temples conceived and existing solely to bring relief to the male member, not distinguishing between straight or gay, and unconcerned with superficial conditions like color or religion, or how old or young, how pretty or ugly, how rich or poor the cock is.” Returning to the United States in the 1970s, he changed his name he began creating pen-and-ink drawings of the emerging gay fetish scenes of New York and San Francisco. His illustrations of muscular, hirsute and exceptionally well-hung gay men cheerfully engaging in BDSM sex acts in bars, alleyways and motels, were heavily inspired by artists Tom of Finland and Bill Schmeling. Reviled by the artistic community and prosecuted as a pornographer by police, his work appeared largely at the gay fetish club Mineshaft, and in a series of covers of gay pulp fiction published by Rough Trade. Famously secretive about his personal life, he refused to have his photo taken, signing his artworks as REX to avoid being traced by vice squads. By the late 1970s, his work began appearing in Drummer magazine, advertisements for BOLT poppers and appeared prominently in William Friedkin’s controversial gay S&M-themed film Cruising. His creative output in the 1980s during the emerging HIV/AIDS crisis, though he continued designing posters for gay clubs The Brig, The Eagle, Lone Star Saloon and The Lure. His work had a major influence on photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whose images of gay fetish culture and S&M sex were heavily inspired by REX’s illustrations. In 1992, he re-emerged in New York, opening a by-appointment-only S&M-themed art gallery in Manhattan. Increasingly disillusioned by the increasing puritanism of America’s gay community, he moved to Amsterdam in 2010, where he mounting his first fully uncensored solo exhibition in 2014. He died in 2024, aged 76 or 77. His San Francisco studio now houses the Bob Mizer Foundation, who continues to promote his work.