BEAU GOSSE, 1939
Oil on board. 35 x 21¼in. (89 x 52cm.)
Provenance
Sotheby's, London, 12th November 1976. Lot 99
Sotheby's, 7 June 1976, lot 80.
Exhibited
London, Mayor Gallery (paintings), 1939, No 2.
Harrogate, Harrogate Art Gallery, 1941, No 19.
London, Hamet Gallery, 1971, ex catalogue.
A naked young man kneels in an undefined environment. He holds a sliver of bone or a thorn in his left hand and appears to have nicked his right forearm with it, causing two drops of blood to form. One wonders whether he is participating in a blood-letting or blond-mingling ceremony, bringing to mind the description in Goose of Hermogenes where the narrator attempts to bind her lover:
I open my veins to the east I open the veins of my arm with the
cut of a sliver of silicon. Blood pours out from the left flows out till
it reaches the sea goes on flowing pours inexhaustible through the
inexhaustible sea without chafe or pause till it surrounds the island
a line veining marble a red line in the green sea taut from my arm
making a long arm to his home circling the island a ribbon of stain
in the foam unmixing like a rusty chain to bind him in binding his
home so he never can go… (p68.)
The overall dimensions of the work, height to width, form the golden section proportion. Additionally, the nipples are placed at the distance above the base line that is the same as the width of the painting, forming a square.
One of the Méditerranée series.
'Beau Gosse' is a common slang expression for an attractive young male, sometimes translated as ‘matinee idol’, ‘good-looking boy’ or ‘gorgeous guy’. It is just possible that Colquhoun, with her interest in dance, knew that Beau Gosse was the name of a character, played by Anton Dolin, in the Diaghilev’s ballet Le Train Bleu, first performed in 1924 (scenario by Cocteau, décor by Laurens, costumes by Chanel, score by Milhaud, choreography by Nijinska and curtain by Picasso.
When shown in Harrogate in 1941, a complainant wrote to the press about a "kneeling nude man”, describing it as “indecent and decadent”. A brief controversy ensued, but the painting remained on show. Perhaps the organisers felt they should show a little backbone, having refused to hang Gouffres Amers (1939). See TGA 929/1/853.