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1980s Erotic nude male portrait of artist's lover, Iconic piece from gay history

1980s Erotic nude male portrait of artist's lover, Iconic piece from gay history

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Philip Core
1980s Erotic nude male portrait of artist's lover, Iconic piece from gay history
1987

About the Item

This incredibly striking portrait, painted in a fiery palette captures an intimate moment between the artist and sitter who were lovers. Philip Core (1951-1989) Portrait of Adrian Ffooks, 4th/7th regiment Signed and dated 1987 to the reverse Oil on board 30 x 17¾ inches without the frame 35 x 23 inches with the frame Provenance: Gifted as a wedding present to Kit Hesketh-Harvey by his future wife. The artist was a friend of the couple and they had introduced Core to FFooks. Kit Hesketh Harvey co-wrote the screenplay (with James Ivory) for E.M.Forster’s Maurice and he had called upon Ffooks, who was renowned for his horsemanship, to be a stunt double for the equestrian scenes in this iconic film. Philp Core grew up in New Orleans, the son of a well-to-do family. At just seven he won the Vieux Carré Open Artists Competition. He was sent to a military academy, and from 1963 to the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University, where he won a number of art and literature prizes. As a schoolboy he self-published a booklet of drawings Palm Fronde Alphabet. An interest in Aubrey Beardsley and fin de siècle artists and writers, led to him spending time in Paris working with Philippe Jullian on his book The Symbolists, before returning to Harvard to complete an honours thesis on Belgian symbolist Fernand Khnopff. He graduated in 1973. Under the pseudonym Féllippé Fecit, he produced a series of erotic drawings for the poet John Glassco for his book Squire Hardman, and in 1968 in the Japanese style for The Temple of Pederasty, a free adaption by Glassco of a work by Japanese expatriate writer Ken Sato. Of this time, George Melly wrote of Core: "an exaggerated child of that extraordinary decade, he made experimental films, bought and designed for a New York boutique, illustrated rather outré books published in limited editions, and worked on an extreme persona. He was untypical only in his lack of interest in drugs. As someone for whom hallucinatory powers were already part of his armoury, and for whom work is of primary importance, chemical stimulae appeared not only unnecessary, but a threat to creation." Following Harvard he attended the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford, and then the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in Florence. In 1975, in his mid-twenties, he settled permanently in London, living in a flat in Elephant and Castle that was painted completely black, before moving to a spacious apartments in Holland Park. It was an economically depressed period in the UK, but Core managed to gain some income contributing art work to gay magazines, and via private commissions. These included a mural for the Ritz hotel depicting a range of guests over the 75-year history of the hotel. He became the photography critic for The Independent, and wrote also number of obituaries for the newspaper, including those for Robert Mapplethorpe and Jean-Michel Basquiat. 1984 saw the publication by him of two books: Camp: The Lie That Tells The Truth, and The Original Eye: arbiters of twentieth-century taste. His encyclopaedic knowledge of lesser-known figures in nineteenth and twentieth century culture led to him becoming a commentator on the BBC Radio 4 programme Kaleidoscope. Core died of AIDS in November 1989 at the Westminster Hospital in London. In a catalogue of an exhibition of his work, Core wrote: "I am not a great artist, only someone who loves painting, drawing and making things with his hands above all else; someone who has, by some curious gift of heredity, become possessed of articulacy and intransigence in equal degree; someone who knows what they love and feels no shame about it." His work is in the collection of the Arts Council of Great Britain. Source: Wikipedia

Creator:
Philip Core (1951 - 1989, American)
Creation Year:
1987
Dimensions:
Height: 30 in (76.2 cm)Width: 17.75 in (45.09 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)
Medium:
Board,Oil
Movement & Style:
Modern
Period:
1980-1989
Condition:
With a couple of minor marks to the periphery where the painting has rubbed against framing nails. It has now been securely framed. It is believed that the sitter's member was repainted by the artist when the painting was presented as a gift.
Gallery Location:
Harkstead, GB
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU1481213744382

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