Bruce Sargeant
In Mark Beard's study of his great-uncle, the influential English artist Bruce Sargeant (1898-1938, above), he quotes from a four-page letter the artist wrote to a friend, in which he revealed a budding love affair with Yip, a laborer's son, who had agreed to pose nude for him.
"Yip took his break without pulling on his trousers," Sargeant wrote. "I poured him a large gin and myself one even larger to relinquish responsibility." ...
(Above: Three Men Undressing by Bruce Sargeant)
... "He stood warmly next to me. I could feel his prick, stomach, chest lightly through my clothes. He calmly touched my trousers to check if I were aroused and kissed me on the lips fully."
In his book Bruce Sargeant and his Circle, Beard wrote that that the relationship ended badly, but in those few lines lay the source of Sargeant's artistic voyage.
(Above: Two Men in Boxing Gloves by Bruce Sargeant)
In his short but productive life, Sargeant exalted the male figure.
(Above: Fumeurs sur les Roches (Smokers on the Rocks) by Bruce Sargeant)
Although the artist died in 1938 in a freak wrestling accident, his work has found a new audience in an age that no longer treads coyly around male sexuality.
(Above: Two Men Reclining on a Blanket by Bruce Sargeant)
Foreshadowing fashion photographers such as Bruce Weber and Greg Gorman, it's no surprise that one of Sargeant's greatest pieces, a mural of seminude gymnasts, should hang in the branch of Abercrombie & Fitch on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
(Above: the mural in Abercrombie & Fitch)
The only problem is that Bruce Sargeant never existed. He is the creation of gay New York artist Mark Beard, born in 1956, who actually painted all of these paintings and signed them "B Sargeant". It's true that the mural by Bruce Sargeant (really by Mark Beard) was in Abercrombie & Fitch. But the rest of the Bruce Sargeant biography is pure fiction. The photo of Bruce Sargeant at the beginning of this post is actually Mark Beard dressed as his alter ego.
The fact that Bruce Sargeant didn't exist hasn't hurt the popularity of the Bruce Sargeant paintings. Some of them have sold at auction for over $7,000.
(Above: Two Men Kissing)
Above, Practicing the Harp. Behind the harpist is the previous painting Two Men Kissing, which makes this painting rather complex – a painting by a fake artist that refers to another painting by the fake artist.
Another favorite Bruce Sargeant subject is men bathing in a river. Above, Bathers by the Shore. I have to say that the skin color in the Bruce Sargeant paintings looks odd, in my opinion – grayish, with patches of orange.
Here's another of many Bruce Sargeant locker room paintings. This one is simply called In the Locker Room.
I like Irishman with his Cello, partly because of the musical instrument, but also the skin color variations are subdued.
Most of the Bruce Sargeant paintings, while homoerotic, are not overtly sexual. They just show nude males. Calder Posing in a Black Leather Jacket is an exception, showing a man with an erection.
We end with the biggest exception to the no-sex rule. This piece, Two Priests Alone in Their Room, has a painting on both sides. Here's one side.
And when you flip it over, here's the other side.
For more of the imaginary life of Bruce Sargeant, as chronicled by Mark Beard, watch the video Bruce Sargeant, Artist on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWTPpIYyBcw. It covers the life of the artist and his artistic training, with interviews of Mark Beard and commentary by experts from Yale University and elsewhere. It is presented absolutely straight-faced, with no clue that the whole thing is a hoax. The photos of Bruce Sargeant and his teacher Hippolyte-Alexandre Michallon are all actually Mark Beard dressed up and disguised, and the artwork, of course, is all by Mark Beard. Strangely, the video cuts off abruptly in mid-sentence after ten and a half minutes, and I haven't been able to find the original video that this was presumably copied from. But it's still a hoot to watch, and interesting to hear artist Mark Beard.
Mark Beard also produces art under his own name and other aliases. We'll see that tomorrow.
8 comments:
I, pervert that I am, noticed immediately that the males in his works all had cut cocks. I enlarged them to see if they looked like they were skinned back, but no. While it didn't cause me to doubt the artist's identity, it did make me wonder where he found so many cut cocks in that era. I wondered if they might be Jewish, but that seemed unlikely. Anyway, thanks, Larry, for a terrific posting.
Unashamed Male, I don't like his color palette, either.
Regarding circumcised men, for most of the twentieth century most male babies were circumcised in North America, regardless of religion. I am circumcised (thank God) and I am not Jewish. All through junior high through college, there was only one guy that I saw who was circumcised. And as an athlete, I've seen thousands of guys all around the country naked.
In my art, all of the men are circumcised.
I have seen many people refer to any image of a naked man as "gay" or "homoerotic". This is nonsense, especially considering there are many images of naked men by women. My art is not "gay" or "homoerotic", as there is no sexual contact between members of the same sex.
Gosh, sorry about that. Although I feel better now.
Thank you for this wonderful series. I will be checking out Mark Beard/Bruce Sargeant's work.
Terrific talent.
The works of Bruce Sargeant are new ground for me. Thanks for the excellent research. Somehow I feel Sargeant would strongly be in favor of the nude motion studies featuring UPenn students, as well as the photography of nude 18-year olds at Yale.
I'll never forget when I first encountered the Mark Beard/Bruce Sargeant fake persona. I thought I had found some remarkably advanced artist and even had begun to put together a series for my blog, only to learn through some last minute detail checking that it was all a hoax. I did, however, post a couple of Beard's early pieces that he did under his own name.
I learn sooo much from this blog - the pictures are just icing on the cake...
another great homoerotic artist
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