1930

Three Sailors on the Beach

Charles Demuth

American, 1883 - 1935

After spending much of his life in New York and Europe, in 1930 Charles Demuth withdrew to his home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to manage his diabetes. While some of Demuth’s earlier watercolors hinted at intimate moments shared between men in public settings, once he was isolated in a conservative environment and coping with illness, the gay artist began creating more explicitly homoerotic drawings of sailors with phalluses exposed.

Though likely an imagined scene, this drawing reflects how ports of call were frequent sites for gay encounters, and how seamen came to be seen as objects of erotic desire. Demuth signed his initials within a tattooed heart on the arm of the sailor at left, playfully inserting himself into the scene.