Portraits by Sir Francis Rose have been featured previously on this site; here he becomes the subject of an intimate bedroom scene by fellow British painter Christopher “Kit” Wood. The two men were lovers at the time, and the scene is the room they shared at the Hôtel Ty-Mad overlooking the Tréboul Bay in north-western France (it looks like the hotel is still there, but has changed quite a bit over the years!).
I quite like the commentary on the painting Richard Ingleby provides in his 1995 biography of Wood:
“Nude Boy in a Bedroom, in keeping with Rose’s tone, was one of Wood’s more overtly erotic paintings, not because the model is a boy and the boy is naked, but because the model is not obviously modelling. He is washing himself, going about his normal, private business in the corner of his bedroom. It is an intimate portrayal of everyday domesticity. This is presumably what Rose would have us believe when he prefaced his description of the picture with the sentiment ‘I loved him deeply” (246).
Referring to several sketches depicting similar scenes, Ingleby notes that they all have “an unmistakably post-coital feel” (246).
Wood’s expressive paintings and fascinating life has recently sparked my interest; this is almost certainly not his first appearance here.
Provenance
Nude Boy in a Bedroom (1930)
Christopher “Kit” Wood
Oil on hardboard
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Works Cited
Ingleby, Richard. Christopher Wood: An English Painter. London: Allison & Busby, 1995. Print.
queer modernisms 