THE RELEVANT QUEER: Henry Scott Tuke, Painter and Photographer

“Youth standing sweet, triumphant by the sea,All freshness of the day, And all the light, Of morn of thy white limbs, firm, bared and bright.”

TRQ: Henry Scott Tuke, Born June 12, 1858

Painter and photographer Henry Scott Tuke was born on June 12, 1858. We know Tuke for his Impressionist work, figurative paintings featuring nude young men and maritime sailing ship portraits. He socialized with poet Oscar Wilde and painter John Singer Sargent. Collected by Elton John and Freddie Mercury, Tuke emerged as a central figure in art history decades after his death, relevant to queer and homoerotic canon. 

Tuke was born in York, England, to a prominent Quaker family known for their work in psychiatry and social activism. He moved with his parents to Falmouth in Cornwall in 1859, to help with his father’s tuberculosis symptoms. There, his family spent days seaside on the beach, and a governess taught the children at home. 

Tuke drew and painted from an early age, and after his family moved to London in 1874, he studied at Slade School of Art. After graduating he travelled to Italy in 1880, where he painted oil studies of adolescent nude males. He lived in Paris from 1881 to 1883. In Paris he studied with painter Paul Laurens and met John Singer Sargent, who also painted nude males. 

Through the 1880s Tuke befriended Oscar Wilde and writers and poets who identified as “Uranians,” meaning having a female psyche in a male body. Drawing on idealisations of Ancient Greece to call for emancipating desire, Uranians celebrated male nude beauty and pre-Christian Hellenic “man-manly love.” 

Tuke wrote a poem and sonnet praising adolescent male beauty. Attributed to Tuke, the poem “Youth” expresses the need for the young to “take again thy rightful crown, in lovers heart to reign!” In his paintings, Tuke presents an adolescent male as the god Hermes, with a winged helmet and caduceus staff. 

In 1883 Tuke moved back to Newlyn, Cornwall to live in a colony of artists known as the Newlyn School, which included Walter Langley and Albert Chevalier. In 1884 he painted Summertime, his first boys in boats painting. 

In 1885 Tuke moved to Falmouth, also in Cornwall, where the climate was suitable for nude sunbathing. In Swanpool, he transformed his £40 fishing boat into a live-in studio where he would entertain friends and paint models swimming, diving and lounging. 

By the 1890s, Tuke had dropped overt references to mythology in his paintings, which never cross into explicit depictions of relationships or bodily details. Young men in his paintings seem to exist in private moments, often with their back to viewers and their anatomy concealed. Tuke’s work deemphasises sexuality, and this likely saved him and his models from scandal. 

Tuke maintained close relationships with many of his models. He donated July Sun featuring a young Nicola Lucciana to the Royal Academy of Arts, after the model died in World War I. 

On March 13, 1929, Tuke died in Falmouth after suffering from a long illness. In his will, he left money to many men who had previously modelled for him. 

In the 1970s, after his reputation had faded somewhat, a new generation of openly gay artists and collectors rediscovered Tuke’s work and revitalised his reputation. In 2017, Tuke was exhibited in Tate Britain’s “Queer British Art 1861-1967.” 

About the Authors

Troy Wise is currently a PhD student at UAL Central St Martins and teaches fashion and graphic design at London College of Contemporary Arts. His background is in marketing and is founder and co-editor of Image Amplified. He lives in, and is continually fascinated by, the city of London.

Rick Guzman earned his most recent MA at UAL Central St Martins in Applied Imagination in the Creative Industries. He currently holds two MA’s and an MBA in the New Media, Journalism and International Business fields. Co-editor at Image Amplified since its start, he lives in London, is fascinated by history and is motivated by continuing to learn and explore. 

Sources:

ArtUK

Christies

GLBTQ Archive

QueerKernow