Patrick Procktor, R.A British, 1936-2003
Study of a Young Man, 1958

POA

Oil on board
Signed and dated (lower left)
122cm × 60cm (136cm × 75cm framed)

Patrick Procktor RA was a British painter, printmaker, and illustrator whose work and life were deeply intertwined with the queer culture of post-war London. Alongside contemporaries like David Hockney, Procktor was a central figure in defining a new, overtly homoerotic aesthetic in 1960s and ’70s British art. Born in Dublin, Procktor moved to London as a child. After serving as a Russian interpreter in the Royal Navy, he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art (1958–1961). At the Slade, he was influenced by Keith Vaughan—whose own work explored the male nude—and developed a figurative style centered on the male form.

Procktor achieved immediate commercial success with his sold-out 1963 solo show at the Redfern Gallery and inclusion in the landmark 1964 New Generation exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. A gay man living through the decriminalization of homosexuality in the UK, Procktor placed male desire and companionship at the absolute center of his visual language. His canvases frequently featured sensual, elongated depictions of young men, male nudes, and lovers, capturing intimacy and male beauty with fluid brushwork and atmospheric color. His portraits celebrated the bohemian gay scene, capturing close friends, lovers, and cultural figures like filmmaker Derek Jarman, photographer Cecil Beaton, and rock icons like Mick Jagger. From 1967 onward, Procktor mastered watercolor, using delicate, semi-translucent washes to evoke a heightened sense of vulnerability, romanticism, and homoerotic tension in both portraiture and travel landscapes across Europe and Asia.

Standing 6'5", intensely flamboyant, and styled as an 18th-century dandy, Procktor embodied the queer avant-garde. He was a close confidant and frequent model for David Hockney—most famously depicted in Hockney’s 1968 painting Procktor with Leather Jacket—and designed album artwork, including Elton John’s Blue Moves (1976), which featured Procktor's painting The Guardian Reader.

Elected a Royal Academician in 1996, Procktor’s later years were marked by personal tragedy, including the loss of his wife, Kirsten Benson (whom he married in 1973), and a devastating studio fire in 1999. Today, Procktor is celebrated not only as a master watercolorist, but as a pioneering figure in modern queer art, with work held in collections at Tate, the Royal Academy, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This work appears in Patrick Procktor: Art and Life, Ian Massey, (Unicorn Press, 2010) at p. 14.