pride month

Pride Month

The month of June plays host to Pride Month, a month long chance to increase the public's awareness of issues faced by the LGBT community, a movement that celebrates sexual diversity and strives to maintain the equal rights and prevent discrimination towards their communities worldwide. In honour of Pride Month, we have brought together six artists who faced the life and artistic challenges imposed on them because of their sexuality, and how they managed to express their experiences and in turn raise awareness.

Francis Bacon

The prolific painter Francis Bacon is known for his unapologetically violent extractions of his sitter's darker emotions to create his distinctive abstract figurative portraits. He often chose male muses, using their nude distorted bodies to make upfront and explicit homosexual references, at a time when artists only dared to hint or leave their paintings ambiguous to such notions, due to the illegality of homosexuality. Bacon was rather sadistic about his approach to the human body and sexuality, his bluntness could possibly have been a reaction to the shame adopted many homosexuals, many of whom were forced to live a life in the shadows. His subjects were often placed in dark basement like rooms, their surroundings bare apart from a wire bed or uncomfortable chair. His canvas was a way to tackle his struggles and the injustices he faced in life, bringing to light emotions and relationships dwelling that can only otherwise be shared behind close doors.

Lili Elbe

Lili Elbe began her life as the feminine alter ego of the male Danish artist Einar Wegener, when he began to pose as a female model for his wife Gerda's Art Nouveau styled illustrations. As Gerda's portraits gained in popularity, so did Lili's strength and presence within Einar. The couple moved to Paris, where Gerda's radical work was celebrated and Lili was free to accompany her dressed as herself, leaving Einar behind for good. Lili gave up Einar's profession as a landscape artist, and legally changed her name and gender, being one of the first people to undergo sexual reassignment surgery and transition into a woman.

Romaine Brooks

Romaine Brooks was an American artist who moved to Europe, fleeing a traumatic upbringing with a substantial inheritance that leant her the freedom to live as an independent woman in times of great restriction. The artist's monochromatic portraits illuminated an unflappable Parisian society of women, who refused to conform to feminine standards of dress and living of the age. Her paintings are early examples of the gender-bending fashions adopted by women, many of whom dressed in a masculine manner to identify themselves as lesbians. Brooks adopted the androgynous look for herself, as seen in her self-portraits and enjoyed relationships with the beguiling and flamboyant dancer Ida Rubenstein and shared a long-term open relationship with writer Natalie Clifford Barney, a prominent member of the 'Left Bank Lesbians.' We first encountered her work at Barbican's 'Modern Couples' which displayed her nude of her lover, the enigmatic Marchesa Luisa Casati.

Gilbert & George

Gilbert and George are partners in both work and in life, after becoming inseparable since meeting at university at Central Saint Martins. The eccentric duo have collaborated on many projects, with themselves as the key elements in their work, showing a bold defiant sign of togetherness and unity often dressed in their trademark smart tailored suits. They began their double-act as performance artists touring their 'Singing Sculptures' piece, which earned them the joint title of 'living sculptures'. Their most recognisable work to date is their 'photo-pieces' colourful digital collages imprinted on large grid canvases. Their work has never shied away from nudity, the use of phallic imagery, sexual references or provocative slogans.

David Hockney

Like Francis Bacon, the leading British artist David Hockney, began his career when the laws on homosexuality were in place, making it extremely difficult to live as a gay man. His 'Love Paintings' seemingly abstract works, that were riddled with visually coded messages in the form of phallic shapes and graffiti sprawled messages to refer to his homosexuality. Artistically stifled by British restrictions, Hockney moved to Los Angeles to create some of his most memorable works. His paintings of swimming pool scenes and naked men reflected an idyllic existence under the Californian sun, the unique thrill of domesticity for gay men to openly live and enjoy life out in the open. His palette and themes were worlds away from Bacon's gritty scenes, his men are outside basking in the sun against an the aquamarine chlorine filled pools against the backdrop of luscious greenery and pastel hued buildings.

Tamara De Lempicka

Polish-born artist Tamara De Lempicka was famous for her glamorous cubist inspired portraits, and came to be regarded as one of the key figures in the Art Deco movement. Known to have been bisexual, Lempicka mingled with many of the female creatives of bohemian Paris, many of whom were intent on being able to indulge and experiment with their sexuality freely in 'women only' salons along the left bank. Lempicka had the pick of an elite group of vivacious aristocratic women to serve as models, often seducing them as well as her patrons. Her work displayed a contemporary view on the female body, depicting her women as strong individuals free of the male gaze, in charge of their own seductive natures, sometimes only reserved for the other naked females in their frame.

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