
In Tate Britain
- Artist
- Duncan Grant 1885–1978
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 2286 × 3061 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1931
- Reference
- N04567
Online caption
Duncan Grant painted this in the summer of 1911 as part of the decoration for the dining room at the Borough Polytechnic, London. Based on the theme ‘London on Holiday’, he represents the continuous movements of male figures bathing, from diving into the water to emerging onto the shaky boat. Grant’s design was inspired by Michelangelo’s male nudes and summers spent at the Serpentine in Hyde Park, which was a site associated with London’s gay culture. The painting was seen as controversial at the time due to its homoerotic implications.
Catalogue entry
N04567 BATHING 1911
Not inscribed.
Casein or wax medium on canvas, 90×120 1/2 (229×306).
Purchased from the Borough Polytechnic (Clarke Fund) 1931.
Exh: Mural Decorative Paintings, Whitechapel Art Gallery, May–June 1935 (105).
See Adeney, N04568, and N04566.
Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I
Features
Explore
- emotions, concepts and ideas(16,416)
-
- formal qualities(12,454)
-
- movement(172)
- recreational activities(2,836)
-
- bathing / swimming(220)
- diving(26)
- male(959)
- sex and relationships(833)
-
- eroticism(409)
- boat - non-specific(2,203)
You might like
-
Duncan Grant The Queen of Sheba
1912 -
Duncan Grant Lemon Gatherers
1910 -
Duncan Grant South of France
1922 -
Duncan Grant Football
1911 -
Duncan Grant Landscape, Sussex
1920 -
Duncan Grant Lytton Strachey. Verso: Crime and Punishment
c.1909 -
Duncan Grant James Strachey
1910 -
Duncan Grant Still Life with Carrots
c.1921 -
Duncan Grant Dancers
c.1910–1 -
Duncan Grant The Kitchen
1902 -
Duncan Grant Interior at Gordon Square
c.1915 -
Duncan Grant The Mantelpiece
1914 -
Duncan Grant Venus and Adonis
c.1919 -
Duncan Grant Head of Eve
1913 -
Duncan Grant The Ass
c.1913