by Anthony Glassman

Sunny Valley, Oregon?Groundbreaking lesbian photographer, author and poet Tee A. Corinne passed away on August 27. She was 62 years old.

Corinne was diagnosed with liver cancer in March, and she succumbed to that disease.

Born in 1943 in St. Petersburg, Florida, she spent time in the Bahamas, New York, Florida, and New York before heading west in 1972.

Cartoonist Alison Bechdel found Corinne?s work very moving.

?The erotic images she was creating in the late seventies and early eighties were a big influence on me when I was first starting out as a cartoonist,? Bechdel said on her weblog.

Sex expert Susie Bright acknowledged Corinne?s contributions to erotic art, along with her frequent collaborator and former partner Honey Lee Cottrell.

?Honey and Tee virtually created lesbian erotic photography during their prolific and imaginative time together as lovers, lesbian historians, and sex educators,? Bright wrote. ?They changed the way women use a camera, and the way a woman is perceived on film.?

?Tee in particular knew more about lesbian artists? history, from ancient times to present, than anyone else in the world,? she continued. ?She once sent me to the National Gallery in Washington with a note that I should buttonhole one of the curators and make them show me every Romaine Brooks painting in their collection.?

?I did,? she noted. ?She?s the reason I have a portrait of Renee Vivien?s grave. I am one of her prot?g?es, and I feel like I only learned a thimbleful of what she had to offer.?

Corinne?s friend Jean Sirius, also a photographer and artist, was designated executor of her estate, and noted that most of it is to be donated to the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Oregon Library.

She asked that, in lieu of flowers, contributions in Corinne?s name be made payable to the Tee Corinne Fund, with ?Tee Corinne U of O Libraries? in the memo line, and be sent to the Library Development Office, 1299 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1299.