In The Dull Village
Signed Print

As with other prints from this series – including In Despair, The Beginning, and Two Boys Aged 23 or 24 – In The Dull Village depicts the now familiar subject of two young men in bed. At ease, they appear to have been captured in a moment of post-coital relaxation, their gestures are laguid, their bodies at rest. The sheet that covers them appears like a landscape of mountains and valleys with its many folds. The men are depicted in fine lines, with cross hatching used for fuzzes of hair and a shadow on the wall behind the bed. Turned away from the artist, seemingly unaware of our gaze, the figures appear less posed than those of many of the other works in the series. One of thirteen prints in the series Illustrations For Fourteen Poems By C.P. Cavafy the work was published in 1967, the same year the British government finally legalised homosexuality. In this way the work can be read as a bold celebration of queer love, and a poignant tribute to Cavafy who, writing at the turn of the century, was forced to conceal his sexual desires.