There are times when a person looking at art may say to themselves, “Why did the artist choose to paint that?” In this post, I’ll take you into my world for a short while.

In my artist statement, I mention why I choose to paint the male figure. I get asked this question quite often and I’m also asked why I don’t paint the female figure. My reasons have to do with the anatomy and structure of the figure. When looking at Classical Greek sculpture, the male figure’s musculature and bone structure is apparent beneath the surface of the skin, creating undulations of light and shadow across the form. Traditionally, the ideal female figure is softer with less defined musculature. Because my work of any subject is focused on light and how it reacts with form, I find the male figure more challenging and therefore more personally appealing to paint.

Over time, I’ve come to the realization that painting the nude male figure or the male figure in general makes exhibition difficult. I had a mentor who called all of my figurative paintings gay art simply because they depicted men. I responded back, “If male art is gay art, then is female art lesbian art?” I received no response. We had this argument many times over the year of my mentorship. I fiinally decided it wasn’t worth the effort to attempt to convince the mentor otherwise as they were decided and there was no way of changing their paradigm.

I know many men, straight and gay, who paint male figurative art. I also know many women who paint female figurative art. As artists, we paint primarily subjects which draw us in as opposed to painting what will sell well.

I and several male figurative artists I know also have had difficulties with gallery representation. As with my mentor, I’ve received feedback from galleries stating “we don’t display gay art.” I feel this is a cultural phenomenon within the U.S. We tend to be quite conservative and puritanical when it comes to figurative art, particularly art of the male figure. I often see galleries posting or displaying beautiful paintings of females with exposed breasts or nude. I very seldom see the same of shirtless male figures or nudes.

I once heard in a conversation that straight and married men in this country have trouble displaying a painting of a male figure in their home. The conversation speculated it was due to insecurity, jealousy, or fear that the woman of the house would be more attracted to the man in the painting than to him. A friend sees it as a manifestation of power and control over women. Whatever the causes, I feel quite fortunate that my collectors don’t appear to fall into this group. Regardless of the perceptions and pushback, I will continue my journey of exploration of the male form and male portraiture.

Following are some of the experiences I’ve had with my work in galleries and exhibitions. I painted a man lying on a sofa in a very dejected manner. The image came from a series of mine titled “The Letter” in which the person had received a “Dear John” letter. From image to image, you saw the model’s downward spiral into depression. In this image, the figure was wearing blue briefs and the painting was titled “Blue,” both for the color of the briefs and for the model’s demeanor. The first gallery to hang this work placed it in the back of the gallery on a wall facing the back wall. This wall was known by artists as the “wall of shame.” I asked the gallery director why my painting was on the wall, and was told, “He has a bump.” I explained that the real male figure is not a Ken doll and does indeed have bump. The painting remained in the least visible spot through the exhibition. I quickly removed the painting from the gallery afterward.

The next time this painting was displayed was in a solo exhibition at a museum. The museum staff reviewed my work and some of the paintings, including this one, were placed in a specially constructed section of my gallery with a warning to adults. I was told one of the staff commented that the man had an erection. This wasn’t true. Another work had a male reclining on a bed under a sheet and coverlet. This same woman again stated the model had an erection. There was no pubic bulge in the work. She was looking at a fold in the fabric of the coverlet. As I mentioned, often, the sexual tone of the piece is projected onto the work by the viewer. I know of no one else who saw what she did in my work. The restricted section of the exhibition was the most popular section of the entire show. I often painted in the gallery while it was open and would see people come into the gallery, go straight to the restricted area, go in and view the work, and then leave without viewing the rest of the exhibition.

In my forty years of painting, I have only painted a full-frontal male nude four times out of hundreds of paintings. Two were for my college painting class, one was when I was experimenting with male figurative watercolor and has never been displayed, and one was three years ago. The most recent painting, in my opinion, would not have worked otherwise. The painting sold on the first day of my exhibition. Thinking on it very few of my paintings are of the male nude. Most are either clothed or more portraiture (chest or higher). Even with these low percentages of nudes, frontal or otherwise, my body of work is classified based upon this very small percentage.

In my opinion, there is a distinct difference between male figurative and gay art. Gay art has a definite implicit or explicit sexual point of view. Traditional male figurative art does not. This is where I have difficulty with the conversation. My work, while containing male figures, has no implicit or explicit sexual point of view. This perception is projected onto the work by the viewer. This attitude also applies to the posting of male figurative artwork or photography on social media. I know many artists and photographers whose work or account has been shut down. One of these is a well-known photographer of romance novel covers. Often, his photography shows a man shirtless, maybe sweaty, staring at the viewer. He has had so many accounts shutdown and photos removed it’s ridiculous. Though it didn’t happen to me personally, one of my images was once removed from Facebook for violating their standards. The photo was of a black male shown from the waist up dancing in an A-line t-shirt. He wasn’t nude and only his shoulders and arms on his torso were exposed. The poster and I were flabbergasted as to how this photo could violate decency standards. I personally have reported more explicit female images and received the response that the image did not violate standards. One was a full-frontal nude female photograph on Facebook.

Let’s look back in history. Back to ancient times. In Egyptian art, the male figure, typically wearing a loincloth of some sort, was prominent. In Greek and Roman art, the male figure, primarily nude, was prominent and dominant as opposed to the female. Most of the female sculpture from the same period was clothed. The fit male figure was seen as an ideal. As time passed and the world became more conservative, male art faded except for paintings and sculptures of Saints in religious art. With the Renaissance, the male figure returned through the artwork of Michelangelo and Bernini. Often, though, genitalia in paintings and sculptures at this time were obscured with a veil of cloth surprisingly suspended in the air, or with a well-placed hand. In Medieval times, once again male art was primarily relegated to paintings of Saints and religious work. During the impressionist and post-impressionist periods, male figurative work appeared sparsely. Seurat painted an image of young men swimming which was very scandalous at the time. Since then, I can think of only a few famous artists who have painted the male figure. Even then, the painter usually also had females in the work as well. There is a current resurgence in figurative art worldwide, but you will find very few artists painting and exhibiting male figurative art. Some contemporary examples are Shane Wolf, Andrew Salgado, Kendric Tonn, Richard Taddei, and Alessandro Tomassetti.

If you agree, ask galleries you frequent to be open and balanced in their exhibition of figurative art.