Henry Scott Tuke NEAC RA RWS (12 June 1858 – 13 March 1929), was an English visual artist; primarily a painter, but also a photographer. His most notable work was in the Impressionist style, and he is best known for his paintings of nude boys and young men. He was elected to the New English Art Club in 1886.

Trained at the Slade School of Art under Alphonse Legros and Sir Edward Poynter, Tuke developed a close relationship with the Newlyn School of painters, his work being exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, of which he became a Member. In addition to his achievements as a figurative painter, he was an established maritime artist and produced many portraits of sailing ships. He was highly prolific, with over 1,300 works listed and more being discovered.

 

Early Life

Tuke was born in York, into the prominent Quaker Tuke family. He was encouraged to draw and paint from an early age. His sister Maria described their childhood in Falmouth as "a very happy and healthy one" and the long summer days spent on the beach and swimming in the sea had a lasting effect.

 

Formative Years

In 1874, Tuke moved to London, where he enrolled in the Slade School of Art. It was in Falmouth that the young Tuke had been introduced to the pleasures of nude sea bathing, a habit he continued into old age. After graduating he travelled to Italy in 1880, and from 1881 to 1883 he lived in Paris, where he studied with the French history painter Jean-Paul Laurens and met the American painter John Singer Sargent (who was also a painter of male nudes, although this was little known in his lifetime).

 

During the 1880s, Tuke also met Oscar Wilde and other prominent poets and writers such as John Addington Symonds, most of whom were homosexual (then usually called Uranian) and 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.

 

The Newlyn School

In 1883, Tuke returned to Britain and moved to Newlyn, Cornwall joining a small colony of artists including Walter Langley, Albert Chevallier Tayler and Thomas Cooper Gotch. These painters, and others, became known as the Newlyn School. He worked from Rose Cottage at Tregadgwith Farm, Cornwall at the head of the Lamorna valley.

 

In Newlyn, in 1884, Tuke completed his first painting of boys in boats. Called Summertime, it depicts two local boys, John Wesley Kitching and John Cotton, in a punt called Little Argo. Tuke's style was more impressionistic than that of the other Newlyn painters and he only stayed a short time. However, he remained close friends with many of the artists until his death.


 

Painting Style 

Tuke favoured rough, visible brush strokes, 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. Although Tuke often finished paintings in the studio, photographic evidence shows that he worked mainly in the open air, which accounts for their freshness of colour and the realistic effects of sunlight reflected by the sea and on the naked flesh of his model.

 

Death and Legacy 

In later life, Tuke was in poor health for many years, and died in Falmouth in 1929. He was buried in a Falmouth cemetery close to his home.  He kept a detailed diary all his life but only two volumes survived after his death and have since been published. He also kept a detailed artist's Register which survives and has been published by the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society in Falmouth.

 

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.

 

Elton John is a keen collector of Tuke's works and in 2008 loaned eleven of his own pieces, including works in oil, pastel and watercolour, for an exhibition in Falmouth.

 

Collections 

H. S. Tuke's works are held in a number of galleries and museums including Tate, Hunterian Art Gallery, Grundy Art Gallery, Walker Art Gallery, Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum, Bodleian Libraries, Royal Academy of Arts, Guildhall Art Gallery.

 

This is an edited version of Henry Scott Tuke's Wikipedia biography.

You can also view over 300 of his artworks on his ArtUK website page.

 

Featured image: A Soldier (possibly T. E. Lawrence) at Newporth Beach, near Falmouth by Henry Scott Tuke. Photo credit: © National Trust / James Grasby