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Charles Hovland Collection Relating to ACT UP

An inventory of the collection at Syracuse University


Finding aid created by: Michele Combs
Date: 10 Feb 2026

Biographical History

Charles Hovland (1954?- ) is an American photographer and AIDS activist.

Born in Northfield, Minnesota, Hovland graduated from a small Lutheran college in Minneapolis and then relocated to New York City. He became interested in pop art during his college years, but began his artistic career in the 1970s photographing models for magazines aimed at gay men, including Honcho, Playguy, and Stallion. For many of the men he photographed, "porn was a political statement...a type of liberation." When AIDS began to ravage the gay community in the early 1980s, Hovland volunteered with Ganga Stone's meal-delivery organization, God’s Love We Deliver, and Gay Men's Health Crisis, but soon felt that more action was needed to raise pubilc awareness of the disease and raise funds for research into treatment. He eventually found his way to ACT UP demonstrations, and then became involved with fundraising for the organization, including the iconic "Silence=Death" t-shirts and the "Auction for Action." Hovland stepped away from fundraising after thirteen or fourteen years, but as of 2012 he was still volunteering with God’s Love We Deliver.

[Biographical sketch adapted from the oral history interview with Charles Hovland, ACT UP Oral History Project.

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Charles Hovland Collection Relating to ACT UP consists of fundraising committee material, photographs, and printed items accumulated by activist Charles Hovland, who served on the fundraising committee of the New York branch of ACT UP. Materials show ACT UP's (quite successful) efforts to raise funds through auctions of original work by many well-known artists, including Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith Haring, Christopher Makor, Andy Warhol, and Annie Leibowitz.

Fundraising committee is a mix of typed and handwriten, and contains membership lists, agendas,. notes, and so on.

Three Photographs show ACT UP members preparing tables at an unidentified event.

Printed items include a full-color catalog and program for the 1989 auction as well as various ACT UP mailings.

Arrangement of the Collection

Material is arranged alphabetically by type or title.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions:

The majority of our archival and manuscript collections are housed offsite and require advance notice for retrieval. Researchers are encouraged to contact us in advance concerning the collection material they wish to access for their research.

Use Restrictions:

Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

Related Material

An oral history interview with Charles Hovland is available through the ACT UP Oral History Project.

Subject Headings

Persons

Hovland, Charles.

Corporate Bodies

ACT UP (Organization)

Subjects

AIDS (Disease) and the arts.
Fundraising.
LGBT activism.

Places

New York (N.Y.)

Genres and Forms

Auction catalogs.
Brochures.
Meeting minutes.
Photographs.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Preferred citation for this material is as follows:

Charles Hovland Collection Relating to ACT UP,
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Libraries

Acquisition Information

Purchase, 2024.

Table of Contents

Fundraising committee

Photographs

Printed material

Inventory