Especially now that it’s Pride Month, my dashing and remarkable friend Quinntin, Curtis Quinntin Phelps that is, reminds me of James Baldwin.
When a British interviewer asked the late-great artist-activist if he found it ironic to be Black, impoverished, and homosexual in America — basically, he was articulating, “Damn, could your situation have been any less promising?” And asking, “Surely just being white would have made all the rest easier?” — Baldwin famously laughed and replied: “No! I thought I hit the jackpot. It was so outrageous, you could not go any further. So you had to find a way to use it.”
Baldwin was certainly not self-pitying nor rueful. Most assuredly, neither is Quinntin. Besides being from large families and often misunderstood, both men, artistic and ambitious, have used their obstacles along with their gifts to overcome any circumstance and to thrive.
Born six decades ago in Cleveland, Ohio, a finally recovering capital of the American Rust Belt, Quinntin has lived here for more than half of that time. Which is to say, like the best of us, he’s a New Yorker by choice. Any New Yorker, particularly anyone who is Queer, knows how important it is to neither complain nor explain, that it’s beneficial both to mind one’s business and to exercise discretion.
Writing in his book, “Truth of Beauty: The Path to Uncovering the Beautiful You” (2021 with Max S. Gordon), Quinntin, a makeup artist, explores beauty as a holistic practice. His tutelage encompasses physical wellness, self-care, personal style, confidence, movement, health, and the cultivation of inner improvement. It does all of this in a way that suggests to me that the only things missing from his effort to help others are lessons to be learned from an imperfect but exemplary life. By way of encouragement, this is my thumbnail sketch.
Michael Henry Adams photos
A 19th-century paisley shawl graces the back of Quinntin Phelps’ plain white upholstered sofa, which sits beneath an engraved 1940s looking glass 
Twin posters advertising a Keith Haring’s “Into 84” Exhibition, depicting dancer Bill T. Jones, might well be portrayals of Quinntin Phelps, who enjoys a similar musculature. 
Chinese fu dogs, porcelain bowls, and a jadeite scepter. (Michael Henry Adams) 
For parties, Quinntin’s long library table and the round center table too, are pressed into service for wonderful buffet suppers of ten. The African bed below the big table serves as a bookshelf and the Chinese carpet is decorated with butterflies, dragons, and lotus blossoms. 
Two 1930s figure studies by George Platt Lynes in Quinntin Phelps’ living room were gifts from the sitter. They are from the same era as his streamlined electric fan. 
A reproduction Tang Dynasty horse and a porcelain vase sit on the semi-elliptical table in Quinntin Phelps’ hallway where scented candles create a memorable, lingering atmosphere. 
(Michael Henry Adams)
Curtis Quinntin Phelps began by losing both parents. He and a sister were raised by their highly religious grandmother. If no more than a young Baldwin, was Quinntin “out” as a youth; in the Black community, his quiet studiousness, graceful movement, and even reticence were prejudicially judged as signs of effeminacy, marking one as a “sissy.” “Grandmother was disapproving. When a friend would visit, we couldn’t go to my room. She had to keep an eye on us,” Quinntin says unflinchingly.
As hard as he worked at school, Quinntin worked harder at the job that launched his career in beauty, at Today’s Headlines, the most fashionable hair salon in the entire Cleveland area. The white Gay proprietors, Colin Lively and Richard Peterson, took this precocious, sought-after stylist under their wings. Still in high school, he had a substantial salary and then a car and contract. “We traveled with clients, even abroad. Eventually I’d have become their partner — but knowing all that was out in the world, I knew I had to leave Ohio. One great change, once I made money, was that Grandmother ceased being disapproving.”
And so, a decade before relocating to New York, after he ended an engagement to his beautiful fiancée, studied at the London School of Fashion, and was a go-go dancer in Paris, Quinntin lived! Here, working directly with Bobbi Brown during their formative years, he joined Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. Not made Ms. Brown’s partner, Quinntin joined Bergdorf Goodman, where he became that highly visible voice of luxury, beauty, and fashion, known as “Ask Quinntin.”
Today, he serves as manager of Tom Ford’s flagship beauty boutique in SoHo.
It’s quite a distance from Washington Heights to SoHo, but, athleticism being a part of his regimen, Quinntin frequently bikes to the Battery and back. Before living uptown near the George Washington Bridge, he had a loft apartment near The Police Building with oversized furniture like his Victorian library table, a Chinese wardrobe, and much more, all in one space.
They say that seeing someone’s surroundings, their home, is to view their truest portrait, and it’s true. As easily elegant and comfortable as if he were the beneficiary of a multigenerational spendthrift trust, Quinntin’s one-bedroom apartment has another quality characteristic of the abodes of inheritors of long-held wealth. With a perfection that’s not so studied as the Ralph Lauren store, he’s arranged and combined high and low, the exquisite and the ordinary, in an extraordinary way. His secret? It is a telling combination of discernment and an admirable nonchalance. As with his immaculate wardrobe, yes, he’s aware of quality and cherishes and takes good care of beloved objects he’d be loath to part with. But like his clothes, his household furnishings serve him, and not the other way around. Ertè, Keith Haring, George Platt Lynes, Celadon porcelain, ebony, West African ivory — apart from any prestige they might convey, what makes them meaningful to Quinntin is how, in combination, well considered, carefully curated, they most clearly say, “Curtis Quinntin Phelps.” Gay or straight, at any age, there’s little as worthwhile or important as expressing and celebrating one’s true self.
