[1] A semi-itinerant childhood was followed by some years at college, where he began by studying architecture, but found himself diverted into religion, psychology, and anthropology, readings that would later inform his own radical theories.
[1] After living and painting for a while in San Antonio, he finally settled at his family's fishing camp at Chinquapin, near Bay City.
In these and other letters (which were donated to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art),[1] Bess makes it clear that his paintings were only part of a grander theory, based on alchemy, the philosophy of Carl Jung, and the rituals of Australian aborigines, which proposed that becoming a hermaphrodite was the key to immortality.
According to Bess's theories, the bulbous section of the urethra could, if sufficiently dilated, receive another penis in what would be the ultimate, eternally rejuvenating form of sexual intercourse.
This physical manifestation of his theory never achieved the results he had hoped for and this quest for immortality was the beginning of a slow decline in both his health and his creative output.
[1] In the years following his death, Bess was nearly forgotten to history, but a 1981 solo show curated by Barbara Haskell at the Whitney Museum of Art helped revive his reputation as an artist.
The film features interviews with Meyer Schapiro, Robert Thurman, and other friends and artists who knew Bess.
As part of the 2012 Whitney Biennial, sculptor Robert Gober curated an exhibition of Bess' paintings from the late 1950s, as well as archival material.
[2][8] Today, Bess is regarded as a unique phenomenon, an artist who cannot be grouped with any one school, but who answered solely and completely to his own vivid, personal vision.