Patrick Angus

The Artwork of Patrick Angus

Born in December of 1953 in North Hollywood, California, American painter Patrick Angus studied at the Santa Barbara Art Institute. Inspired by David Hockney’s book “72 Drawings”, he came to New York in 1980 to see the Picasso retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Angus settled in the city and started illustrating the emerging modern gay culture with visual narratives and humor which had not been visible to the general population at that time. 

Patrick Angus depicted not only the pleasant aspects of the scenes he witnessed; but he was also concerned with the unadorned sides of the persons and situations. The central theme that is expressed in many of Angus’s works is the longing for true, not only physical, intimacy. With his distinct observation skills, his compositions, and the use of light and expressive color, he depicted his observation of the scene, but also captured its atmosphere and the vulnerability of its individuals. The loneliness that Angus, as well as other gay men, often felt during this time and the attempts to offset it play an important role in Angus’ body of work.

Angus is known for his depiction of the gay New York scene in the 1980s, particularly its bar scenes, porn theaters, bathhouses, and strip shows. He is especially known for his large paintings of the Gaiety Theater, above the Howard Johnson’s restaurant at the corner of 46th Street and Broadway, with its nightlife of bold colors, flashing lights, and young male erotic dancers. Angus often created a dialogue in his work with references to known artists; such as Picasso and Manet,, by depicting them in his work, a practice common with the notions of post-modern art. 

An example of this dialogue is Angus’s 1979 “Los Angeles Drawings”, which capture his experience discovering the city and its inhabitants at the beginning of his career as an openly gay artist. These drawings, which features portraits of men together in everyday life, are a direct conversation with fellow painter David Hockney, who remained a mentor, a collector of Angus’s work, as well as a friend until his death. 

Patrick Angus died in 1992 at the age of 38 from the effects of AIDS, without receiving due recognition for his work during his lifetime. In recent years, however, his popularity increased with major retrospective exhibitions being held. An exhibition in early 2015 at Galerie Thomas Fuchs was followed by art fair presentations in Karlsruhe, Berlin, Miami, and other cities. A comprehensive monograph was produced in 2016 by art publisher Hatje Cantz with the participation of Galerie Thomas Fuchs. 

This monograph was followed in 2017 by a major exhibition entitled “Patrick Angus” at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany, on the occasion of which a publication was released by Distanz Verlag. In 2019 the Long Beach Museum of Art in California presented a retrospective of his work. The Leslie-Lohmann Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York later showed Angus’s work in the group exhibition “On Our Backs: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work”. 

Patrick Angus is represented in the collections of the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, the Leslie-Lohmann Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art and the Schwules Museum Berlin, and in many private collections.