123 – I love you

The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley is rooted in gay history. MSV benefactor Julian Wood Glass Jr. (1910–1992) and his partner R. Lee Taylor (1924–2000) renovated the Museum’s Glen Burnie House—Glass’s ancestral home—in the 1950s and 1960s and created the formal landscape that surrounds it.

On view through 2026, the exhibition 123 – I love you: Queer Life at Glen Burnie offers a glimpse into the world of Julian Wood Glass Jr. and the romantic relationships that influenced his life and collection. The display was refreshed in early spring to include new objects on view for the first time. Highlights include Glass’s original drawing for the Moon Gate in the Asian Garden, archival photographs of the garden Tea House under construction, Julian and Lee’s passports accompanied by travel photos and a hatbox, and a silk dressing gown worn by Glass in the 1980s. Objects on view in the exhibit are rotated twice a year.

Most objects in the exhibition are drawn from the Glen Burnie Queer Studies Collection. Established in 2019, the Glen Burnie Queer Studies Collection consists of the everyday, material life objects owned by Julian Wood Glass Jr. and R. Lee Taylor dating to their occupancy of Glen Burnie. The collection includes objects that speak to their time as a gay couple and select objects owned by the group of friends and immediate family that supported them.

The display of 123 – I love you has been made possible by Procter & Gamble and the generous support Steven Lowe.