From Perry Brass’s article for The Huffington Post:
In the 1930s you would simply have direct depictions of men—there had to be. Any seductive qualities in the male image would have been shot down in the U.S. with a bazooka, or later squirreled away by the Kinsey Institute as George Platt Lynes’s photos were. Beard though is frankly good at what he does, and there are passages of genuine life and air in the paintings; he’s also exquisitely apt at presenting those chalk-white complexions from another era smeared with blushes of orangey red where the blood was racing to the surface from embarrassment. . . ; as well as the agony of muscles, chest, hands and feet pummeled by hard physical work and sport.
So I would urge you to go to ClampArt to see “Bruce Sargeant (1898-1938): Parlor, Gymnasium, and Field,“ and just relax for a while and let the seductive intentions of Beard’s tragic uncle’s output work on you.
View the exhibition “Bruce Sargeant (1898-1938): Parlor, Gymnasium & Field”
Browse all of Mark Beard’s work at ClampArt