A new exhibition at the Tate Britain reveals that David Hockney’s early works depicted a “peaceful gay paradise” at a time when homosexuality was a criminal offence in the United Kingdom. The exhibition, titled ‘Hockney’s London: The Hidden Queer Landscape’, showcases paintings and drawings from the 1960s, some of which were hidden from public view for decades.
Hockney, now 87, came of age as an artist following the Wolfenden Report of 1957, which recommended the decriminalisation of male homosexuality. However, full decriminalisation did not occur in England and Wales until 1967, the year after Hockney completed his seminal work, ‘A Bigger Splash’.
Curators have assembled private sketchbooks and paintings featuring intimate domestic scenes between men, rendered in Hockney’s signature bold colours. The works are notable for their unapologetic celebration of gay love during a period of legal and social oppression.
“These pieces are remarkable not only for their aesthetic merit but for their political defiance,” said Dr. Eleanor Mears, the exhibition’s lead curator. “Hockney was depicting a peaceful gay paradise, a world of domesticity and affection that the law of the time rendered illegal.”
The exhibition includes ‘We Two Boys Together Clinging’, a 1961 work inspired by Walt Whitman’s poetry, which shows two male figures embracing. Another piece, ‘Domestic Scene, Los Angeles’, from 1963, portrays two men in a sunlit kitchen, their bodies relaxed and unguarded.
The Tate’s decision to mount the exhibition comes amid ongoing debates about LGBTQ+ representation in art history. The museum has faced criticism in the past for failing to adequately address the queer subtext of major works.
This exhibition, however, confronts the issue directly. “We are not reading queer subtext into Hockney’s work,” Mears said. “The subtext is text. He was very explicit in his joy and his longing, and we have the archival evidence to prove it.”
Hockney has always been open about his sexuality, having moved to California in part to escape British repression. Yet the early London works now on display show a more vulnerable and clandestine artist.
The exhibition also explores the legal landscape. A wall display includes copies of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, under which Oscar Wilde was prosecuted, and the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which finally legalised homosexuality in limited circumstances.
“These paintings were created in the shadow of the law,” Mears added. “Each brushstroke was a small rebellion.”
The exhibition runs from 15 May to 15 September. It has already garnered international attention, with critics hailing it as a landmark moment in queer art history.
For the BBC’s part, the report is being framed as a cultural milestone. But for Hockney’s admirers, it is long overdue recognition of an artist who painted the life he wished to live, even when that life was forbidden.
