Portrait of Henry Scott Tuke

Henry Scott Tuke Painting Reproductions 2 of 4

1858-1929

British Newlyn School Painter

Henry Scott Tuke, (12 June 1858 - 13 March 1929), a British painter and photographer, is best remembered for his paintings of naked boys and young men.

Tuke was born in York into a prominent family of Friends (Quakers). His father Daniel Hack Tuke was a prominent campaigner for humane treatment of the insane. His great-great-grandfather William Tuke had founded the Retreat at York, one of the first modern insane asylums, in 1792 . His great-grandfather Henry Tuke, grandfather Samuel Tuke and uncle James Hack Tuke were also well-known social activists.

In 1874 Tuke moved with his family to London, where he enrolled in the Slade School of Art. After graduating he traveled to Italy in 1880 , and from 1881 to 1883 he lived in Paris, where he studied with the French history painter Paul Laurens and met the American painter John Singer Sargent (who was also a painter of male nudes, although this fact was little known in his lifetime).

During the 1880s Tuke also met Oscar Wilde and other prominent poets and writers, most of them homosexuals (then usually called Uranian) who celebrated the adolescent male. He wrote a "sonnet to youth" which was published anonymously in The Artist, and also contributed an essay to The Studio.

Tuke returned to Britain and moved to Newlyn, Cornwall joining a small colony of artists. These included Walter Langley, Albert Chevallier Tayler and Thomas Cooper Gotch a lifelong painter of the girl-child, who became a lifelong friend. These painters and others are known to art historians as the Newlyn School.

In 1885 Tuke settled in Falmouth, a fishing port in Cornwall, then still a remote and romantically rustic part of the country, with a very mild climate which is more agreeable for nude open air activities than in most other British regions. He bought a fishing boat for 40 pounds and converted it into a floating studio and living quarters. Here could indulge his passion for painting boys in privacy. Most of his works depict boys and young men who swim, dive and lounge, usually naked, on a boat or on the beach.

Tuke also produced more saleable works on narrative or historical themes. In these paintings Tuke placed his male nudes in safely mythological contexts, but critics have usually found these works to be rather formal, lifeless and flaccid.

From the 1890s, Tuke abandoned mythological themes and began to paint local boys fishing, sailing, swimming and diving, and also began to paint in a more naturalistic style. His handling of paint became freer, and he began using bold, fresh color. One of his best known paintings from this period is August Blue (1893-1894), a study of four nude youths bathing from a boat.

Although Tuke's paintings of nude youths undoubtedly appealed to those gay men who found adolescents attractive, they are never explicitly sexual. The models' genitals are almost never shown, they are almost never in physical contact with each other, and there is never any suggestion of overt sexuality.

Tuke formed close friendships with many of his models, but it has never been established that he was sexually involved with any of them, on either a romantic or commercial basis. Although it is possible that he was sexually active with local youths, it is equally possible that, like many gay men in this period, he sublimated his sexuality into romantic friendships, and into his art.

Because of his subject matter, Tuke was unable to sell many of his works, except to a select circle of homosexual art collectors. But he was also well known as a portraitist, and maintained a London studio to work on his commissions. Among his best known portraits is that of soldier and writer T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia").

Technically, Tuke favored rough, visible brushstrokes, at a time when a smooth, polished finish was favoured by fashionable painters and critics. He had a strong sense of colour and excelled in the depiction of natural light, particularly the soft, fragile sunlight of the English summer. Had his choice of subject matter been more orthodox, Tuke might have become a major name in British painting: as it was he remained a niche painter.

Nevertheless, Tuke did enjoy a considerable reputation, and he did well enough from his painting to be able to travel abroad, painting in France, Italy and the West Indies. In 1900 a banquet was held in his honour at the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1914 . In later life he was in poor health for many years, and died in Falmouth in 1929.

After his death Tuke's reputation faded, and he was largely forgotten until the 1970s, when he was rediscovered by the first generation of openly gay artists and art collectors. He has since become something of a cult figure in gay cultural circles, with lavish editions of his paintings published and his works fetching high prices at auctions.

82 Tuke Paintings

Boy on a Beach, 1912 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Boy on a Beach 1912

Oil Painting
$762
Canvas Print
$49.85
SKU: THS-12895
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

The White Ship, 1915 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

The White Ship 1915

Paper Art Print
$47.47
SKU: THS-12896
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 35.5 x 25.4 cm
Public Collection

Barque and Tug, 1922 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Barque and Tug 1922

Paper Art Print
$47.47
SKU: THS-12897
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 17.6 x 25.4 cm
Public Collection

Charlie Seated on the Sand, 1907 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Charlie Seated on the Sand 1907

Paper Art Print
$47.47
SKU: THS-12898
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 14 x 21.5 cm
Public Collection

The Steering Lesson, 1892 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

The Steering Lesson 1892

Oil Painting
$959
Canvas Print
$49.85
SKU: THS-12899
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 45.2 x 59.2 cm
Private Collection

A French Barque in Falmouth Bay, 1902 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

A French Barque in Falmouth Bay 1902

Oil Painting
$888
Canvas Print
$61.81
SKU: THS-12900
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 50 x 60 cm
Falmouth Art Gallery, Cornwall, United Kingdom

The Look-Out (The Lookout Man), 1908 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

The Look-Out (The Lookout Man) 1908

Paper Art Print
$47.47
SKU: THS-12901
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 50.8 x 35.8 cm
Public Collection

T. E. Lawrence as a cadet at Newporth Beach, near Falmouth, 1906 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

T. E. Lawrence as a cadet at Newporth Beach, near ... 1906

Oil Painting
$928
Canvas Print
$61.81
SKU: THS-12902
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Netting Lobster, n.d. by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Netting Lobster n.d.

Paper Art Print
$47.47
SKU: THS-12903
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 38.1 x 27.9 cm
Private Collection

The Market, Belize, British Honduras, 1924 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

The Market, Belize, British Honduras 1924

Paper Art Print
$47.47
SKU: THS-12904
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 26 x 36.3 cm
Public Collection

Samuel under a Tree, Jamaica, n.d. by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Samuel under a Tree, Jamaica n.d.

Oil Painting
$751
Canvas Print
$49.85
SKU: THS-12905
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

Gleaming Waters, 1910 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Gleaming Waters 1910

Oil Painting
$1145
Canvas Print
$56.73
SKU: THS-12906
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 197.6 x 148.6 cm
Private Collection

Noonday Heat, 1908 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Noonday Heat 1908

Oil Painting
$1165
Canvas Print
$49.85
SKU: THS-12907
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 82 x 134 cm
Public Collection

Our Jack, 1886 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Our Jack 1886

Oil Painting
$927
Canvas Print
$49.85
SKU: THS-12908
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 50.5 x 32 cm
Public Collection

Ships in Harbour, c.1919 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Ships in Harbour c.1919

Paper Art Print
$47.47
SKU: THS-12909
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 36 x 50 cm
Public Collection

August Blue, 1896 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

August Blue 1896

Paper Art Print
$47.47
SKU: THS-12910
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: unknown
Private Collection

White Barque, 1896 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

White Barque 1896

Oil Painting
$848
Canvas Print
$49.85
SKU: THS-12911
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 36 x 48.6 cm
Public Collection

The Missionary Boat, 1894 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

The Missionary Boat 1894

Oil Painting
$974
Canvas Print
$49.85
SKU: THS-12912
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 56 x 92 cm
Public Collection

The Look Out, 1886 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

The Look Out 1886

Oil Painting
$745
Canvas Print
$49.85
SKU: THS-12913
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 23.5 x 33 cm
Private Collection

All Hands to the Pumps, c.1888 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

All Hands to the Pumps c.1888

Oil Painting
$1674
Canvas Print
$54.67
SKU: THS-12914
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 185.4 x 139.7 cm
Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Sailor's Yarning, Midday Rest, 1906 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Sailor's Yarning, Midday Rest 1906

Oil Painting
$1308
Canvas Print
$57.97
SKU: THS-12915
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 103 x 134 cm
Private Collection

A Bathing Group, 1914 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

A Bathing Group 1914

Oil Painting
$1102
Canvas Print
$49.85
SKU: THS-14132
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 90.2 x 59.7 cm
Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom

The Bather, 1924 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

The Bather 1924

Oil Painting
$664
Canvas Print
$49.85
SKU: THS-14133
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 39.4 x 31.8 cm
Private Collection

Return from Fishing, 1907 by Tuke | Painting Reproduction

Return from Fishing 1907

Oil Painting
$1470
Canvas Print
$58.24
SKU: THS-14134
Henry Scott Tuke
Original Size: 112 x 87.5 cm
Private Collection

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