Patrick Angus. Works from a Private Collection

"Portrait of Douglas Blair Turnbaugh"

Throughout his life, Patrick Angus created portraits of friends and family. The figures in his paintings are often set individually or in pairs in richly detailed interiors, which often form a contrast to the lonely and seemingly melancholic people. Taking cues from artists such as David Hockney and Edward Hopper, whose works inspired Patrick Angus, these paintings offer an intimate and sensitive glimpse into the everyday lives of the subjects depicted.

This work features Douglas Blair Turnbaugh, who is not only an acquaintance of the artist, but also his executer/administrator. He tried to help Patrick Angus succeed in the art scene during his lifetime and shortly after Angus's death published his first monograph under the title Strip Show: Paintings by Patrick Angus, in which this painting is also depicted. Angus places Douglas Blair Turnbaugh in the center of a fully furnished living room, particularly notable for the bright red sofa. The armchair next to him, also in red, remains empty - leaving a void that can only be filled by imagination. Angus paints from a purely observational perspective, thus not taking part in the action and distancing himself from the scene. This position as observer runs through many works in his oeuvre.

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"Ross MacLean, Playwright"

Ross MacLean observes the viewer warily in this portrait by Patrick Angus from 1990. While Patrick Angus is still an observer in "Portrait of Douglas Blair Turnbaugh", here he enters into direct contact with his model. Leaning back casually but with a tense look, Ross MacLean is introduced to us. Ross MacLean is a playwrighter aquainted with Patrick Angus, who deals in his plays, among other things, with thematics of the homosexual community.

In his portraits, Patrick Angus tried to portray people according to his own perception and feeling, without embellishing or exaggerating anything.

Along with several other works by Patrick Angus, a black and white illustration of "Ross MacLean, Playwright" was published in a 1990 issue of the gay cult magazine Christopher Street.

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"Houston & Lafayette Streets"

As in his depictions of the gay underground scene of 1980s New York, which tell of the emotional and sexual desires of the figures and their longing for love, affection, and acceptance, this deserted city view also shows human loneliness and isolation. At first, "Houston & Lafayette Streets" seems to be a callous rendering of reality. All signs of life, including the inhabitants themselves, disappear. What remains is a blank slate, a deserted and uninhabited city. Only gradually does the underlying melancholy of the work open up.

The intersection of Houston Street and Lafayette Street is located in Lower Manhattan near Broadway. Flat skyscrapers border the streets. Trees, lamps, and traffic lights located on the streets are punctuated with precisely placed accents of light reflections and shadows, referencing his detailed powers of observation. The urban motifs and contrasting light direction, as well as the stillness and simplicity, are reminiscent of works by Edward Hopper, who explored the loneliness of modern man.

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"The MoMA Sculpture Garden"

After returning from his homeland California in 1984, Patrick Angus worked in the museum store at MoMA, which served as his subject here. Just as he was a chronicler of the queer scene, observing people from the outside, he captures the scene at hand from a distance. Of the many people gathered in the sculpture garden, only a few are interacting with each other. Moments of silence and also loneliness open up as the figures are viewed individually. The desire for connection to others and for inclusion in society seems to be present in the subjects of this mundane everyday scene. In a similar way they are reminiscing of the people in the strip clubs, bars and bathhouses of the queer scene of the time. The ruthlessness and bluntness that is attributed to his Gaiety Theatre works characterizes the oeuvre of Patrick Angus, who portrayed people as he saw them.

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"Self - Portrait"

With a stern expression and a serious look, Patrick Angus presents himself not only in this, but in many of his self-portraits. During his lifetime without due recognition of the art scene and the "mainstream gay scene", the art of Patrick Angus was rediscovered only in recent years, long after his untimely death in 1992.
In this portrait, the expressive face and finely modulated skin are set against simplified, flat forms intersected by naturalistic details. With his everyday pictorial subjects and meticulous observational skills, Angus joins the ranks of American realism. Inspired by works of David Park, Pablo Picasso, Edward Hopper, but also Henri Matisse and Claude Monet, it are especially the works of David Hockney that served as a source of inspiration for Patrick Angus. During Angus' lifetime, David Hockney bought six of his works. The well-known gay cult magazine Christopher Street published works by him in a 1988 issue. Nevertheless, Patrick Angus remained in his position as an impoverished artist.

In this painting, he shows his self-portrait on a painted canvas, a picture within a picture, thus highlighting himself as an artist. This work by Patrick Angus is reminiscent of the self-portrait of Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). But where Carracci presents himself as a luminous focal point, Angus moves himself to the edge of the painting, making himself small and leaving space above. Angus, who considered himself unattractive, works out his "flaws," highlighting in particular his nose and the dark circles. He does not present himself as a self-confident artist, but shows himself in his own perception as an underappreciated artist full of insecurities and marked by life.

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"J. B. With Cane"

With an absent gaze and leaning on his cane, Patrick Angus presents J.B. in this portrait. It is one of several works with J.B. as a model that Angus produced in the 1980s, showing the artist's seemingly close companion in various positions and attires.

In several portraits Patrick Angus made of J.B, he is shown in clothing that does not conform to heteronormative notions of masculinity. In addition to the short skirt J.B. wears over his suit in this work, the painting J.B. in Drag (Standing) from 1988 also reflects this, in which he is shown in a polka-dotted dress and with long hair. In this sense, Patrick Angus plays with gender norms and challenges gender stereotypes - themes that were as relevant then as they are now.

Patrick Angus claimed that gay men "still have few honest images of themselves" and therefore need to represent themselves, which strengthens his function as a chronicler of the queer scene.

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