A dear acquaintance recently wrote me after having seen my most recent
offering in the Gallery, expressing some surprise at the fact that I
had neglected to offer up any work by Henry Tuke, the wonderful
British portrait painter. Upon review, I discovered that he was quite
correct! Indeed, I had found only one image in my entire collections
that was clearly a Tuke composition!
This great embarrassment I have hence remedied, tho' not to my
satisfaction. If any kind patron here happens to possess better
images of Sir Tuke's fine work [yes, I have knighted him in my own
mind] would you be so kind as to exhibit them here? Thank you in
advance for your consideration.
I have taken some biographical information regarding Henry Tuke from
that fabulous source, Wikipedia, for any who might be inclined towards
self education. Please see below.
Sincerely,
Your Somewhat Remiss Art Patron,
Victor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Scott_Tuke
Tuke was born in York into a prominent family of Friends (Quakers).
His father Daniel Hack Tuke was a prominent campaigner for humane
treatment of the insane. His great-great-grandfather William Tuke had
founded the Retreat at York, one of the first modern insane asylums,
in 1792 . His great-grandfather Henry Tuke, grandfather Samuel Tuke
and uncle James Hack Tuke were also well-known social activists.
In 1874 Tuke moved with his family to London, where he enrolled in the
Slade School of Art. After graduating he traveled to Italy in 1880 ,
and from 1881 to 1883 he lived in Paris, where he studied with the
French history painter Jean-Paul Laurens and met the American painter
John Singer Sargent (who was also a painter of male nudes, although
this fact was little known in his lifetime).
During the 1880s Tuke also met Oscar Wilde and other prominent poets
and writers, most of them homosexuals (then usually called Uranian)
who celebrated the adolescent male. He wrote a "sonnet to youth" which
was published anonymously in The Artist, and also contributed an essay
to The Studio.
Tuke returned to Britain and moved to Newlyn, Cornwall joining a small
colony of artists. These included Walter Langley, Albert Chevallier
Tayler and Thomas Cooper Gotch a lifelong painter of the girl-child,
who became a lifelong friend. These painters and others are known to
art historians as the Newlyn School.
In 1885 Tuke settled in Falmouth, a fishing port in Cornwall, then
still a remote and romantically rustic part of the country, with a
very mild climate which is more agreeable for nude open air activities
than in most other British regions. He bought a fishing boat for 40
pounds and converted it into a floating studio and living quarters.
Here could indulge his passion for painting boys in privacy. Most of
his works depict boys and young men who swim, dive and lounge, usually
naked, on a boat or on the beach.
Tuke also produced more saleable works on narrative or historical
themes. In these paintings Tuke placed his male nudes in safely
mythological contexts, but critics have usually found these works to
be rather formal, lifeless and flaccid.
From the 1890s, Tuke abandoned mythological themes and began to paint
local boys fishing, sailing, swimming and diving, and also began to
paint in a more naturalistic style. His handling of paint became
freer, and he began using bold, fresh color. One of his best known
paintings from this period is August Blue (1893-1894), a study of four
nude youths bathing from a boat.
Although Tuke's paintings of nude youths undoubtedly appealed to those
gay men who found adolescents attractive, they are never explicitly
sexual. The models' genitals are almost never shown, they are almost
never in physical contact with each other, and there is never any
suggestion of overt sexuality.
Tuke formed close friendships with many of his models, but it has
never been established that he was sexually involved with any of them,
on either a romantic or commercial basis. Although it is possible that
he was sexually active with local youths, it is equally possible that,
like many gay men in this period, he sublimated his sexuality into
romantic friendships, and into his art.
Because of his subject matter, Tuke was unable to sell many of his
works, except to a select circle of homosexual art collectors. But he
was also well known as a portraitist, and maintained a London studio
to work on his commissions. Among his best known portraits is that of
soldier and writer T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia").
Technically, Tuke favored rough, visible brushstrokes, at a time when
a smooth, polished finish was favoured by fashionable painters and
critics. He had a strong sense of colour and excelled in the depiction
of natural light, particularly the soft, fragile sunlight of the
English summer. Had his choice of subject matter been more orthodox,
Tuke might have become a major name in British painting: as it was he
remained a niche painter.
Nevertheless, Tuke did enjoy a considerable reputation, and he did
well enough from his painting to be able to travel abroad, painting in
France, Italy and the West Indies. In 1900 a banquet was held in his
honour at the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. He was elected to
the Royal Academy of Arts in 1914 . In later life he was in poor
health for many years, and died in Falmouth in 1929.
After his death Tuke's reputation faded, and he was largely forgotten
until the 1970s, when he was rediscovered by the first generation of
openly gay artists and art collectors. He has since become something
of a cult figure in gay cultural circles, with lavish editions of his
paintings published and his works fetching high prices at auctions.
The student halls at University College Falmouth are named after him,
a tribute to Tuke as an artist, as well as a famous resident of the
town. They were built and named when the University was previously
called Falmouth College of Arts.
[ References]
35 colour and 25 monochrome plates), Heretic Books, 2003.
Under Canvas (Sarema Press, 1991).
<http://www.glbtq.com/arts/tuke_hs.html>. Retrieved on 2007-08-19
God Save Her Majesty the Queen.
God Preserve the Prince of Wales.
Rule Britannia!
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