OTP 2021 Programme - Charleston
The Erotic Drawings
Sunday 7 Feb, 2pm
Bookable in advance https://www.charleston.org.uk/whats-on/
Link will be emailed to all participants in advance of the talk
Due to the explicit nature of these drawings, this talk is for over 18s only.
About Charleston
Charleston is a house, garden, art gallery and auditorium situated in the spectacular South Downs National Park in Sussex. The house is a living, breathing work of art, filled at every turn with the creative impulse and vitality of two of the twentieth century’s most radical and influential artists: Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.
Decades ahead of the aesthetic, social and moral codes of the day, Charleston was always a safe, accepting, friendly and entertaining space where friends could meet. Famously, it is where the boundary-breaking and pioneering artists, writers and thinkers of the Bloomsbury group could be themselves and found their most convincing expression. Over the years, regular visitors included Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, and Lytton Strachey, among others. It has an incredibly rich queer history and culture that Charleston celebrates to this day.
The erotic drawings
On 2 May 1959 the artist Duncan Grant gave his friend Edward le Bas a folder marked ‘These drawings are very private.’ Inside was a collection of over four hundred erotic illustrations that express Grant’s lifelong fascination with the joy and beauty of queer sexual encounters. It was thought that Le Bas’ sister had destroyed them after he had died. They were in fact rescued and have remained in private hands ever since, a secret collection passed from lover to lover, friend to friend for 60 years.
In 2020, current owner generously donated this remarkable collection to Charleston, to celebrate and share with the wider public. “I don’t want to go back in the closet again, nor do I want these drawings to go back in the closet.”
This body of work comes from the 1940s and 50s, and expresses the playful and erotic aspects of Grant’s personality. Influenced by the Greco-Roman traditions and contemporary physique magazines, the works were produced in tandem with Grant’s public art, often sharing similar formal themes and techniques.
Charleston’s curator, Dr Darren Clarke tells the story of this incredibly beautiful collection.
OUTing the Past
Charleston took part for the first time in the festival in 2019 with a day long programme of rich and diverse talks. We are so sad not to be able to host real events for the moment, but look forward to coming together in real life for OUTing the Past in 2022.