This thesis explores the changing theoretical and historical
protocols for understanding the complex relationships between visual
representation, masculinity and male sexual identity in Britain
since World War 11. Through oblique encounters with the work of
Francis Bacon, Cecil Beaton, Keith Vaughan and David Sockney,
detailed readings of popular fiction, literature and literary
theory, research in the archives of The Departmental Committee on
Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (1955-7), analysis of British
health and fitness magazines and a consideration of the spaces of
male social and sexual encounter, historically based readings of
written and visual representations of the male figure are formulated
that circulate Two Figures 1953 by Francis Bacon. These readings
challenge a number of established approaches, including those that
use the protocols of psychoanalysis, post-structuralism and certain
forms of social/sexual politics and theory.
