The Erotic Drawings of Scottish Artist Duncan Grant, the Talented Painter and Careless Lover

Duncan Grant (1885–1978) was a painter, designer, and a prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group, including sisters Virginia Wolf and Vanessa Bell, the writers Lytton Strachey, E. M. Forster, and many others. A famous post-impressionist, who was called "Matisse of Britain," Duncan shared the views of the Vienna Secession, insisting that art belongs to everyday life. Some of his works were even collected by the Queen Mother. Yet, besides landscape paintings, portraits, murals, ceramics, and decorated household items, he produced hundreds of erotic sketches and lived openly as gay, saying, "Never be ashamed."

Fig. 1. Young Duncan Grant (pinterest.com)

Fig. 2. Self-Portrait, 1960s, charcoal and gouache (poppins-shop.com)

Fig. 3. Near Cassis, watercolor (artnet.com)

Fig. 4. The Harem, oil on board, 1926 (mutualart.com)

Fig. 5. The Lover Advances, 1950, oil on canvas (bonhams.com)

Encouraged by His Aunt

Grant was born into a family of Major Bartle Grant and spent his early years in India and Burma. As a teenager, he developed an interest in Japanese woodblock prints, whose influence can be seen in the expressive colors of his paintings. Already at 16, the young artist was awarded art prizes at the St. Paul School in London. From 1900 to 1906, Grant lived with his aunt and uncle, who persuaded his parents that he should choose art as a career. In 1902, he enrolled at the Westminster School of Art and studied there for three years. In the winter of 1905, Grant traveled to Italy to make studies and copies of the famous oeuvres of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca. Financially supported by his aunt, he was able to spend the following year at the Académie de La Palette in Paris, and after that, he also studied at the Slade School of Art.

Fig.6  Boys Leapfrogging, 1962, oil on canvas (x.com)

Fig. 7. Don looking in the mirror, 1948, oil and pencil on paper (mutualart.com)

Fig. 8. Male nude in the mirror, oil on paper laid on board (tumblr.com)

Centre of Attraction

The example of Duncan Grant proves that it doesn't take a broken heart to be a talented and sought-after artist. He was equally successful in art and love and, when it comes to the latter, probably even too successful. In fact, he had amorous relationships with several prominent representatives of the Bloomsbury Group, founded in 1905. Among his lovers were Lytton Strachey, the economist John Maynard Keynes, and his close friend, painter Vanessa Bell, a co-director of the Omega Workshops, launched in 1913.

Continue reading in Premium and learn more about the influence of Grant's troubled relationship with the painter Vanessa Bell, the interracial and intersexual aesthetics in his art, and 61 additional examples of his homoerotic and heterosexual drawings

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Sources: Wikipedia.org; Douglas Blair Turnbaugh. Grant, Duncan (1885-1978) / "Glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture "

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