Recently  the ”queer newswaves’ were abuzz with a major discovery  of series of staggeringly homoerotic and formally “hidden” drawings by the late artist Duncan Grant.  Now with the intention of raising essential Funds to help reopen Charleston, in East Sussex, to the general public next Spring. a very of the images have been released 

Charleston was  the country home of Grant and his part-time mistress Vanessa Bell  (Virginia Wolfe’s sister) and a country bolt hole used by several other members of  the Bloomsbury Group.

(Mini history recap: Grant was a gay artist and designer who at the end of the 19th Century had a very impressive list of lovers that included dhis cousin, the writer Lytton Strachey, the future politician Arthur Hobhouse and the economist John Maynard Keynes, Allegedly Grant was seduced by  Vanessa Bell who was desperate to have a child. 

The Bloomsbury Group were not just known for creating great literature and art, but also for their promiscuity considered outrageous in the Victorian and Edwardian eras..  For example after Bell, Grants next lover was David Garnett a writer and publisher who would later marry Angelique the daughter that Grant had with Bell!)

These newly discovered very explicit artworks, which date back to the 1940s and 1950s, were initially kept under wraps because of the illegality of gay sex.  “‘Never be ashamed’ was a belief that Duncan Grant lived by, so at first it may appear strange, even hypocritical that this collection of works were hidden, marked ‘very private’, that there is a palpable sense of fear at their discovery.

Dr Darren Clarke, Head of Collections, Research and Exhibitions at The Charleston Trust commented  “Turning over one piece of paper after another, what appears are more than 400 images of queer sex: of couples, throuples and more. Drawn and painted with Duncan Grant’s fluid, sensual, yet confident hand, these works are a celebration of queer sex, a major body of work that changes our perception of both the artist and the world he lived in.

(All pictures: Untitled drawing, c.1946-1959, Duncan Grant (1885-1978), The Charleston Trust © The Estate of Duncan Grant, licensed by DACS 2020)

For more information about Charleston click Here. They have hav launched a crowdfunding campaign with Art Fund to raise the final funds needed to reopen.  Every pound/dollar  donated towards the target will be  matched