Francis Bacon and Queer Intimacy in Post-War London

Francis Bacon’s paintings of the immediate post-war period in Britain include several works that take as their subject the spaces and experiences of queer intimacy, prior to the legalisation of homosexuality in 1967. These works inevitably stray across the spheres that queer men occupied at this time, from the domestic interior to public spaces like bars and hotels. Through an analysis of Two Figures, 1953, and the Man In Blue series, 1954 in their wider social and cultural contexts, this essay argues that Bacon’s works present visions of a broad, fluid, anxious sense of queer home in post-war London.