Henry Scott Tuke

“Although Henry Scott Tuke did not follow his father into medicine, the two men found themselves, in very different contexts, looked to for some kind of answer as to how male same-sex desire might be brought into public discourse. Yet each himself maintained a silence on the subject that some of their contemporaries, and some later historians, have struggled to understand.”

“As one Tatler critic recognised when praising Henry Scott Tuke as par excellence the painter of youth', the depiction of naked youths bathing or sitting on Cornish beaches looking contemplatively out to sea played an important part in Tuke's artistic success. However, these paintings elicted a range of different readings and conflicting interpretations from Tuke's viewers, some of which detected a sexualized approach on the artist's part to the unclothed adolescent male body, while many others did not.”

“Famously, the models all said in later life that Tuke never exploited them or made untoward suggestions; unlike his friend Charles Masson Fox, Tyke was never accused of sexual impropriety in his relations with boys and young men.”

“But I always return to my first opinion, that the truth and beauty of flesh in sunlight by the sea, is offered to you in a way impossible to secure in pictures built up from hasty sketches, at leisure, in one's studio. Because however much you may work indoors afterwards, whatever you add is with the outdoor impression upon you.”

“At the first time I took up the subject... it seemed to open up fresh vistas and certainly gave new interest to the study of the undraped figure to depict it with pure daylight upon it, instead of the artificial light of the studio. Besides as a matter of personal taste, I much prefer working in the open to the close air of a room.”