Henry Scott Tuke, “Sunbathers”, Oil on Canvas, Date Unknown
In 1874 Tuke moved to London, where at the age of 16, he enrolled in the Slade School of Art. It was in Falmouth that the young Tuke had been introduced to the pleasures of nude sea bathing, a habit he continued into old age. After graduating he travelled 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 was little known in his lifetime).
During the 1880s Tuke also met Oscar Wilde and other prominent poets and writers such as John Addington Symonds, most of whom were homosexual (then usually called Uranian) and 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.
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.
For a more complete biography: https://ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon.blog/2021/01/03/henry-scott-tuke/
Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Albert Taylor (Age 21) and Henry Scott Tuke (Age 25), Cornwall, England”, 1883, Vintage Print