Artists - Part 66

Henry Scott Tuke

Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929) was an English artist.  Above, a self-portrait, 1881.  Tuke never married and was probably gay.  In the 1880s, Tuke met with Oscar Wilde and other poets and writers called Uranians – the term referred to homosexuals, not people from Uranus.

Tuke is best known for his paintings of nude boys and young men, like The Bathers, 1889, above.

A Woodland Bather, above, was painted sometime before 1893.

And here's a photo of Tuke at work painting A Woodland Bather.

In those days, it was common for men and boys to be naked at the beach and swimming.  Tuke had always swum naked himself in Falmouth when he was growing up.  Above, young men in and on the water in Ruby, Gold and Malachite, 1902.

This undated portrait of Charlie Mitchell, one of Tuke's regular models, is an extremely rare depiction of frontal nudity by Tuke.  Mitchell also appears in Ruby, Gold and Malachite as the youth sitting on the rock.

Almost all of Tuke's other paintings show his nude subjects from the rear, like this painting of Charlie Mitchell, Charlie Seated on the Sand, 1907, or show them in a posture that conceals frontal nudity.

Tom White was another of Tuke's models.  He lived in Falmouth and posed nude for many bathing paintings from 1915 to 1918, when White was 14 to 17 years old.  Above, a photo of White posing on Newporth Beach, a secluded beach just outside Falmouth, at age 16.

Here is the resulting painting, Under the Western Sun, 1917.

Although Tuke was almost certainly gay, his paintings and photos of boys and youths were not child pornography.  He asked permission from parents before painting young boys in the nude.  The paintings are not sexual, and they almost never show frontal nudity.  They show boys and men naked on the beach, which was common behavior in those days.

That's not to say that Tuke didn't enjoy seeing naked boys and youths and being naked with them.  Above is a photo of Tuke's model Tom White diving into the water at Newporth beach.  The naked figure on the right is Henry Scott Tuke.

Tuke painted some things other than naked boys and youths.  He was known for his paintings of ships and also for his portraits.  Above is a painting of T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, at Newporth Beach, 1921 or 1922.  Lawrence is not nude, but he appears to be undressing, and we can assume he was stripping naked to go swimming.

But what Tuke loved most was painting naked boys and youths.  Above, Lovers of the Sun, 1923.

We end with a photo of Tuke at Newporth Beach with his model Donald Rolph.  In the photo we can dimly see the painting that Tuke is working on.

And here's the finished painting: Comrades, 1924, which also includes Tuke's dog Chippy.

Late in his life Tuke was in poor health.  He died in 1929, aged 70.