Who’s the painter?

Known for outdoor oil studies of men, Cornwall-raised Tuke studied at the Slade before moving to Florence from 1880-81. He met the English painter Arthur Lemon who worked outdoors (en plein-air) and introduced Tuke to the ideas of the French Impressionists, encouraging him to paint the scene as it was observed. They spent a month together at Pietrasanta in Tuscany, painting nude boys on the beach who sat for them for two pence at a time. As Tuke’s subject matter became established, his works gathered a distinct following and have since become iconic examples of homosexual art from the Victorian era.

Who’s in the painting?

After a period in Paris, Tuke moved back to Cornwall in 1883 and soon befriended local boys and fishermen who became his models. However, the standing figure in A Bathing Group is the professional Italian model Nicola Lucciani, who came from London to pose for Tuke. Although this is a domestic scene, Tuke has put Lucciani in a Classical pose, like a Greek god, and paints him with a great expressiveness, his broad brush strokes mimicking the effect of the light. This idyllic scene was though soon tinged with sadness, as Lucciani was killed in World War I a few years later.