Edward Gorey, Kenneth Williams, Avaz Hafizli, Andy Warhol

Born: Edward Gorey (1925), Kenneth Williams (1926)
Died: Avaz Hafizli (2022), Andy Warhol (1987)

Born on this day

An illustrator whose elegant drawings give the absurd and macabre a world of their own.

Britain’s favourite comic voice of the “Carry On” films kept his homosexuality a private torment, recorded only in his diaries.

He chained himself to the prosecutor’s office to demand protection for queer people – five months later, his own cousin killed him.

His soup cans became Pop Art icons; his films and circle of collaborators also made queer life part of modern art.