artqueer:

Duncan Grant
The Lovers
12½ x 10in. (31.8 x 25.5cm.)

“These depictions of men caught in the act draw from two of Grant’s many influences: the tradition of Attic pottery (cradle of Western art) and the fresco tradition of the Italian Renaissance. From the latter, Grant’s watercolors manage to evoke both the simplicity of that tradition’s cartoon studies and the pure, light color of its finished frescos. The Attic tradition was openly, vigorously homoerotic; from the Renaissance tradition Grant had to excavate the homoerotic subtext and bring it to the surface”

• leslielohman.org/newsletter/no21/grant21_1.htm