Radical Queer Intimacy: An Interview with Gay Curator Jon Horrocks about “Queer Love”

Duncan Grant, 'Untitled', c. 1940s-1950s, Coloured pencil on paper, 20 x 25.7cm (7 7/8 x 10 1/8in). Copyright The Estate of Duncan Grant. Courtesy The Charleston Trust and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. All rights reserved DACS 2022.

BY EMMA CIESLIK April 26 2025

Some histories we believe are destroyed. Discovering them, especially queer histories, is an act of joy and celebration, unimaginable when they were originally created. 

Duncan Grant (1885-1978) created queer erotica in 1940s and ‘50s England. At that time, men having sex with men was illegal, and Queer Love, an exhibition hosted at the Stephen Friedman Gallery in New York in collaboration with the UK charity Charleston, represents the first time they are being shown outside of the UK. Grant originally shared these drawings with his friend and fellow painter Edward Le Bas (1904-1966), tucked into a folder marked “very private.” These drawings, some of which depict interracial queer couples, were believed to have been destroyed after Le Bas’ death but they were in fact rescued and have remained in private hands ever since, passed between lovers and friends for over 60 years until they were given to Charleston. 

This exhibition, which opened to the public on April 17th, pairs Grant’s drawings, on loan from Charleston, in dialogue with new works by 10 contemporary LGBTQ+ artists. Exhibiting artists include: Soufiane Ababri, Leilah Babirye, Anthony Cudahy, Kyle Dunn, Alex Foxton, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Wardell Milan, Sola Olulode, Tom Worsfold and Jimmy Wright. In conversation with Grant’s drawings, groundbreaking for the time and largely inspired by Roman mythology and 20th century bodybuilding magazines, these artists explore the politics of desire and the power of queer erotica to present radical, visible possibilities of queer love. 

Installation: Queer Love, Stephen Friedman Gallery, New York (2025). Courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photos by Olympia Shannon.

With the exhibition in full swing, I sat down with exhibition curator Jon Horrocks, Director at Stephen Friedman Gallery, to discuss the history and impact of these drawings and the artists in conversation with Grant almost 50 years after the artist’s death. 

This interview was edited for length and clarity. 

Emma Cieslik: Would you mind introducing yourself however you feel comfortable?

Jon Horrocks: Of course! My name is Jon Horrocks. I’m an art historian by training and currently a Director at Stephen Friedman Gallery, which has locations in London and New York. I oversee curatorial strategy at the gallery and I am particularly interested in giving a platform to marginalised voices, as seen in this show.

Cieslik: How did Queer Love come into being? Did the discovery of Grant’s drawings prompt this exhibition or was it something else?

Horrocks: Stephen [Friedman] and I first came across Duncan Grant’s drawings in early 2023 while visiting Charleston, located in East Sussex, UK. A small selection was on view and we were completely bowled over. Stephen managed to convince the lovely Nathaniel Hepburn, Director and CEO of Charleston, to let us loan a group of drawings, which is a remarkable feat in itself. We are incredibly grateful to Nathaniel and the team at the museum for their generosity in making this show happen. I was then given the task of curating a show around them. I wanted to contextualise Grant’s drawings alongside works by contemporary artists in order to highlight the significant and hard won progress made since his covert documentation of homosexual intimacy over 75 years ago. 

Cieslik: Grant’s drawings represent a rare view into the lives of queer men in 1940s and 1950s England. It contrasts sharply with my recent interview with Marc Vallée about his photography exploring alternative queer club scenes in the 1990s in the UK. Why is it important to document queer artists and preserve their work?

Horrocks: That’s a big question! Queer identities have existed throughout history, but at a time when civil liberties and LGBTQ+ rights are once again under attack, giving visibility to what it means to be gay – in this instance, queer love in all its transgressive splendour – is so important. In the accompanying exhibition booklet, a wonderful queer writer and friend called Jack Parlett notes: “Sexual pleasure has long been a frontier of queer liberation, a defining feature of what it means to live and express ourselves freely, and [Grant’s] drawings capture something of this radical joy.” This really sums up what we were trying to encapsulate with the show.

Cieslik: On that note, the drawings were passed secretly between lovers and friends for over 60 years? How is that provenance recorded? 

Horrocks: Remarkably, Norman Coates, the final custodian of these drawings, gifted all 400 of them to Charleston in 2020. He had stored the drawings in plastic folders under his bed for years and years. On handing them over, Coates remarked: “I’m not going back in the closet, and neither are the drawings!”

Cieslik: What does it mean, to you, for these drawings to exist, be saved, and now be on display?

Horrocks: The opening of the exhibition was incredibly emotional. Nearly 400 people came to celebrate the show. This demonstration of solidarity from the queer community, particularly in light of the UK Supreme Court’s horrendous gender ruling the day before, was very meaningful. A coming together of unanimous hearts and minds. I hope that Duncan Grant would have been proud.

Sola Olulode, ‘In the Bubble of Your Love’, 2023. Oil, oil bars, charcoal, oil pastels, pigment on canvas, 180 x 120cm (70 7/8 x 47 1/4in). Copyright Sola Olulode. Courtesy the artist; Sapar Contemporary; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo by Olympia Shannon.

Jimmy Wright, 'Sam Reclining', 2025. Oil on canvas, 93.98 x 137.16cm (37 x 54in). Copyright Jimmy Wright. Courtesy the artist; FIERMAN; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo by Olympia Shannon.

Cieslik: How were the 10 contemporary queer artists that responded to Grant’s works identified? Was it an open call? How did you ensure that the love on display was intersectional?

Horrocks: Intensive research! The show took nearly 2 years to come together. Lots of reading and deep-diving on recent literature and social media, as well as conversations with like-minded curators, colleagues and friends. We tried to make the selection as diverse and multigenerational as possible. For example, the youngest person in the exhibition is British-Nigerian artist Sola Olulode who is 28, while the oldest is American artist Jimmy Wright who is 81!

Cieslik: By citing one of Grant’s drawings and one work of the contemporary artists featured in the show, how was and is queer intimacy a radical act?

Horrocks: I think Grant’s depictions of interracial sex between men are particularly radical; the furore that would have erupted if they’d been discovered at the time they were made would have been astronomical. In terms of a contemporary artist, Jonathan Lyndon Chase’s fabulous depictions of the queer body are subversive by celebrating the beauty of being both sensual and oversized.

Jonathan Lyndon Chase, 'seat', 2024. Graphite on paper, 63.5 x 45.7cm (25 x 18in) Framed: 68.6 x 53.3cm (27 x 21in). Copyright Jonathan Lyndon Chase. Courtesy the artist; Sadie Coles HQ, London; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo by Olympia Shannon.

Duncan Grant, 'Untitled - two figures', c. 1940s-1950s. Pen and colour wash on paper, 9 x 13.7cm (3 1/2 x 5 3/8in) Framed: 22.4 x 31.1cm (8 7/8 x 12 1/4in). Copyright The Estate of Duncan Grant. Courtesy The Charleston Trust and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. All rights reserved DACS 2022.

Cieslik: As a lesbian, much of the queer intimacy I was exposed to was often through exploitative mediums that hypersexualized our bodies and identities. How does this exhibition counter this exploitation?

Horrocks: While the works are, of course, highly erotic, I think it’s also important to acknowledge that they are very tender – I think this broadens the wider perception of gay sexual relationships. There’s something different about these works to Tom of Finland’s highly charged depiction of the male form, for example. They aren’t just ‘hardcore’ or about power play. At the end of the day, I believe that these drawings are predicated on love.

Wardell Milan, 'Candice and Claudia', 2023. Graphite, watercolour, oil pastel on paper, 26 x 35.6cm (10 1/4 x 14in) Framed: 33 x 42.6cm (13 x 16 3/4in). Copyright Wardell Milan. Courtesy the artist; Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, New York; and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York. Photo by Jason Wyche.

Cieslik: These are depictions that come internal from the community. It’s not straight creators that are imposing their understanding of what queer intimacy looks like. 

Horrocks: It’s also lived experience. 

Cieslik: How does the gallery ensure that visitors are ethical consumers of what Grant may not have imagined would ever be on display?

Horrocks: Firstly, we provide a written warning to visitors entering the space that there is sensitive material on view. Secondly, we have worked in close partnership with the team at Charleston, the central meeting place of the Bloomsbury group and Grant’s former home, who have given this project their blessing as guardians of his legacy. For me, this is a celebration of how views on homosexuality have changed, hopefully for the better, and I’d like to think that Grant would have embraced us showing them in this context.

Cieslik: What do you hope people walk away with from the exhibition?

Horrocks: Love transcends everything.

Queer Love will be on display until May 21, 2025 at the Stephen Friedman Gallery in New York City.