Gay and Not-so-Gay at London’s Portrait Gallery

I was disappointed in the Portrait Gallery’s annual BP Portrait Contest which I never ever miss if I’m in London for the summer. This year the five prizes were all awarded – every single one of them – to men painters. The subjects of those paintings were one boy and four women, two of whom had their breasts exposed. Fifty-some paintings were selected from 2,580 entries – and as far as I could tell, of those only three subjects were people of color. Of course the Portrait Gallery used the portraits of people of color in their publicity materials, raising false expectations.

The show this year was homogenized with rather moribund subject matter, lacking passion or excitement or surprising insights into the souls of the subjects. There were few attempts at creating new kinds of images, with the impressive exceptions of the mirrored Archipelago (above) by Brian Shields and the black/white/grey Another Fine Day On Elysian Fields Avenue, Nola (left) by Éva Csányi-Hurskin. There was almost no movement to be seen, everyone just sitting and staring, except for the wonderful portrait of lefty director Ken Loach by Richard Twose. You can see all of the exhibited portraits here.

I was gratified by a small exhibit on the same floor with photos by David Gwinnutt called Before We Were Men. These shots were taken in the early 1980s of young artistic gay men who were later to do astounding work. They were all part of the London underground scene, comrades in the experimental and outsider life. I was so glad to see two photos that included the filmmaker Derek Jarman. I met him several times through his partner who was the artistic director of an amazing magazine called Square Peg for which I wrote as part (briefly) of its collective. Derek was one of the first men I knew who became more and more ill until he died from AIDs. The visuals and my emotions of that experience have always stayed with me.

There’s a splendidly dramatic photo of Leigh Bowery (left) and other black and white shots of these guys as they gender-bended in their squats and cheap lodgings. It was a raucous anti-Thatcher sub-culture of gender rebellion, and I only wish the word “gay” had appeared in any of the copious copy accompanying the exhibition.

The Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square (entrance is free) is always worth a visit, not the least for its permanent collection of portraits over the generations –528 portraits of Queen Victoria; Jane Austen painted several times by her sister Cassandra; four images of Amy Winehouse, one of which is by Marlene Dumas; and Henry James by John Singer Sargent. The most prominently displayed portrait right now is a brand-new larger-than-life image by Belfast-based artist Colin Davidson of Ed Sheeran.

August 2017

Comments

[Marj]

So disappointing. Ho hum. Thanks as ever for saving me the trouble!

[Stephanie]

Thanks for the link to all the portraits. I liked seeing them
All and reading some of the stories. I especially liked the portraits of Francesco, Dr. Tim
Morey'in, and The Piets -- all by women.

[Stephanie]

Oh my - typos and auto-correct...