Queer Juxtapositions in the Art of Francis Bacon and Lilliput Magazine

Abstract

Francis Bacon made extensive use of photographs and other images from the visual culture of his time in the production of works that were implicitly queer. Homosexual men were widely represented in prose and through cartoons as camply effeminate ‘pansies’. In the magazine Lilliput, by contrast, photographic spreads produced juxtapositions that evoked a range of responses to same-sex attraction from erotic engagement to nervous rejection. Studying the ways in which this and other magazines engaged with queer culture enables us to reassess the painter’s use of juxtaposed visual forms as acts of sexualized self-expression.