In Despair
Signed Print

Two young men are lying in bed, the sheets pulled down to their midriffs and rumpled to create a beautiful landscape of creases. Their arms are folded behind their heads in an exaggerated pose of relaxation. The man on the left is looking away but the youth on the right meets the artist’s gaze with a frank expression, highlighting the posed nature of this post-coital scene. The eroticism of the encounter is laid bare for all to see and Hockney makes no apologies for the homosexual element which would have been originally concealed in the poems by C.P. Cavafy which these prints accompany. Published in 1967, the same year the British government finally legalised homosexual acts, the series is a celebration of gay love and has become iconic of 20th century queer art. From nude portraits to scenes showing fleeting encounters and assignations, the works are boldly proud of their queerness, acting as a kind of propaganda for a marginalised section of society that previously were forced to live with a ‘love that dare not speak its name’. In this way Illustrations For Fourteen Poems By C.P. Cavafy is a seminal series in Hockney’s oeuvre, confirming his identity as a queer artist as well as his mastery of etching as a medium.