Loving Boys (1929).
German artist Christian Schad (1894–1982) wasn’t gay but his New Objectivity paintings were often overtly sexual, as with his most well-known work, Self-Portrait with Model (1927). This drawing was posted in a piece about Schad at Weimar Art, and, given the place and period from which it originates, wouldn’t be out of place on the cover of Christopher and His Kind, Christopher Isherwood’s memoir about gay life in pre-war Berlin which was recently dramatised by the BBC.
For more about Schad’s work and erotic concerns there’s Lewd Awakening: Rediscovering a German Connoisseur of Sex at Village Voice. Ten Dreams has a gallery with more of his paintings.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive
Warme Brüder!
Good post John, it’s always a treat to see a work by Schad that I wasn’t aware of. Even today he seems too underexposed and cultish an artist considering his talent, or maybe that’s just in the UK?
America has that painting I linked to but I suspect Schad hasn’t been given the attention he might for being part of a movement which set itself against Expressionism. Realistic painting was regarded with suspicion by art critics for most of the twentieth century for a variety of reasons, so you often come across artists who stand out for not easily fitting the usual neat histories of the art world. That’s not necessarily what’s happened with Schad but it’s happened often enough elsewhere to be a familiar syndrome.