A three part series marking the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of sex between men through the Sexual Offences Act of 1967. Simon Callow presents an exploration of 100 years of queer life in Britain seen through the lens of the arts.

The series has been produced in partnership with Tate Britain and their landmark exhibition Queer British Art 1861-1967. Simon's guide throughout the series is exhibition curator Clare Barlow.

In the final episode, Simon charts the emergence of a new wave of openly queer artists in the 1950s and 60s. Working at a time when practising homosexuality was still illegal, these artists liberated themselves rather than waiting for a change in the law.

Simon visits his local library, the site of a radical campaign of homoerotic vandalism which saw the writer Joe Orton and his partner Kenneth Halliwell deface library books with lewd covers, before surreptitiously placing them back on the shelves to shock the unsuspecting readers of Islington. We also sit down with Francis Bacon's close friend Michael Peppiatt who discusses the tortured male figures and scenes of gay sex that Bacon defiantly painted.

The episode concludes with an examination of the work of David Hockney who represents a radical departure in queer art. Neither coded, nor titillating, his early work - self professed "homosexual propaganda" - explores homosexuality in a way that is completely transparent and self-celebrating. Simon concludes that, while Bacon was a genius, his vision of lovemaking was not encouraging. The gospel according to Hockney however was a gospel of love and light.

Presenter: Simon Callow
Producer: Max O'Brien
A TBI production for BBC Radio 4. Show less