Laub sits, provocative and confident, on the deck of the house he rented every summer on Fire Island. The dramatic perspectival rhythm of the vertical fence or railing at left focuses attention on the strong vertical axis of Laub’s body at right. Having taken off his shorts, Laub wears only his white underpants. Strong shadows suggest the blazing sunlight of summertime.
Born and trained in Philadelphia, Laub was a gay man whose career intersected with the AIDS crisis. Through the 1980s, he volunteered his design skills to many direct-service organizations, making posters and graphic ephemera. Laub earned his BFA in graphic design from the Philadelphia College of Art (later the University of the Arts), and then studied filmmaking at San Francisco Art Institute and architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Ultimately choosing painting, he exhibited at Philadelphia galleries including A. J. Wood and Gross McCleaf before relocating to New York in 1984. Laub was deeply involved with the Fire Island Pines Art Project, serving on its board of directors and co-chairing its annual group exhibition, The Art Show. He taught summer painting classes from his Fire Island Pines home for a decade.
