{"id":637769,"date":"2026-10-06T06:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T06:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637769\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T06:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T06:04:09","slug":"i-call-them-erotic-landscapes-fashion-photographer-tim-walker-on-his-powerful-tapestry-of-queer-britain-art-and-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637769\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I call them erotic landscapes\u2019: fashion photographer Tim Walker on his powerful tapestry of queer Britain | Art and design"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six years ago, Tim Walker was walking in the Highbury Fields area of London when he came across a plaque on the side of a building. In 1970, at these now-converted public toilets, Louis Eakes, chairman of the Young Liberals<\/a>, was arrested for importuning following a \u201cpretty police\u201d entrapment in which male officers posed as would-be sex partners.<\/p>\n

It was here, the plaque told the photographer, that the first ever gay rights demonstration in Britain had taken place, organised by the Gay Liberation Front, in protest at Eakes\u2019s arrest. But Walker was jolted by the date: 27 November 1970. It was the day he was born. So he wondered: \u201cWho were those people out marching that day? Where are they now?\u201d<\/p>\n

This was the genesis of Walker\u2019s new exhibition, Fairyland: Love and Legends<\/a>, about to open at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Its rooms of photographic portraits represent a tapestry of queer community in Britain spanning decades and taking in activists, artists, writers, models and everyday heroes, from nurses to physicians and army veterans.<\/p>\n

The fairy concept was inspired by Walker\u2019s childhood. \u201cMy brother and I used to share a bedroom, and over our beds was a scene of fairyland, with little pixies and elves. I was always making camps in the garden. And by the time I was sent to school, the word fairy was derogatory. So I think the fantasy and escapism got muddied by the bullying.\u201d The exhibition, then, is a long-overdue self-affirmation.<\/p>\n

\u2018No ruffles or French hoods\u2019 \u2026 activist Lady Phyll Photograph: Courtesy Tim Walker<\/p>\n

I meet Walker at his studio in Shoreditch. Gentle and attentive, he serves peppermint tea, ginger biscuits and gluten-free jaffa cakes on a tray of china and strolls around a scale model of the exhibition as he talks me through it. Of course, it starts with the gay men and women on the Highbury march: Ted Brown, Lisa Power and Andrew Lumsden. Power and Lumsden are shot to mimic the Northern Renaissance portrait style of Hans Holbein the Younger. \u201cYou\u2019re in the National Portrait Gallery<\/a>,\u201d Walker explains. \u201cIf you go to the top floor, you have all these Holbein paintings. I wanted to put the people at the march into that realm of Holbein-esque celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not everyone desired to be dressed up in ruffles and French hoods, so activists Peter Tatchell, Phyllis Opoku-Gyimah (Lady Phyll) and Sue Sanders are shot against Walker\u2019s trademark white background, as are queer stars including Ian McKellen, Troye Sivan and Chappell Roan. Why this style? \u201cThat\u2019s the cheapest way,\u201d Walker says. His method is collaborative; he discussed with each person how they\u2019d like to be shot and asked them to bring significant items. Russell T Davies is covered in pages from the script for his drama It\u2019s a Sin, while photographer Sunil Gupta brings a camera.<\/p>\n

In the show\u2019s most arresting moment, Graham McKerrow is depicted in a pork pie hat and suit, holding a November 1982 copy of Capital Gay, the newspaper he co-founded with the late Michael Mason<\/a>. The splash says: \u201cUS disease hits London.\u201d This, says Walker, \u201creally moved me, because he brought this newspaper from when the first news hit about Aids. That was the first time anyone was talking about it here.\u201d<\/p>\n

That history of Aids runs through the exhibition. In one emotional image, nurse Jane Bruton, who has worked with HIV patients for 40 years, is depicted holding her former patient Tony Whitehead, one of the first people whose lives were saved by combination therapy in 1996. They are photographed with Jonathan Weber, a professor of medicine who was part of that scientific breakthrough. \u201cIt was such a beautiful reunion,\u201d Walker says, \u201cbut what really touched me was their gestures: that care and pride was still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Star power \u2026 Ian McKellen. Photograph: Courtesy Tim Walker<\/p>\n

Capturing this was important to Walker because he remembered sitting in the living room as a teenager with his family watching the falling tombstone from the Don\u2019t Die of Ignorance public health TV campaign launched in 1987 by health secretary Norman Fowler to warn the public about HIV and Aids. \u201cI feel that set the whole gay liberation movement back, it was such a terrible thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the white backgrounds, the fantasy portraits of fairies, floral teapots and Meissen candlestick holders, the most explicit photography comes at the exhibition\u2019s close: erotic lesbian shots, a surrealist image of butt cheeks impressed on a goldfish bowl, a giant rat and octopuses strewn across submitting models and an S&M dalmatian pup suspended in the air. \u201cThere\u2019s kinky play where people dress up as dogs,\u201d Walker notes. \u201cI think there\u2019s worlds here, erotic sexual landscapes I call them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The backgrounds to these images are baroque, Walker having been inspired by Jean-Honor\u00e9 Fragonard\u2019s oil painting The Swing<\/a> in London\u2019s Wallace Collection. He originally conceived of these more risque images being scattered throughout the exhibition. But the National Portrait Gallery wouldn\u2019t have it: \u201cThey wanted to push everything to the back so that could be an 18-plus room,\u201d he says, scoffing.<\/p>\n

Walker was born in Guildford; his mother wrote cookbooks and his father worked in industry. He attended Charterhouse boarding school which he describes as \u201chorrific, absolutely Victorian, so homophobic\u201d. He met his first boyfriend when he attended Exeter Art<\/a> College, but before that he\u2019d had a sexual awakening watching Channel 4\u2019s late-night progressive queer programming, Derek Jarman\u2019s Latin-language film Sebastiane being one particularly vivid memory: \u201cI wanked a lot watching it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u2018I call them erotic landscapes\u2019 \u2026 a fantasy fairy portrait. Photograph: Courtesy Tim Walker<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t really get involved in London\u2019s gay scene until later into his 20s, living it vicariously through the queer pop soundtrack of the time; songs such as Bronski Beat\u2019s Smalltown Boy, The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Tainted Love by Soft Cell, whose singer Marc Almond is featured in the show. He eventually started going to Love Muscle at the Fridge in Brixton, \u201ca big gay night of 1,000 people on a Saturday\u201d.<\/p>\n

Walker found the studios of London\u2019s East End to be \u201ccrummy\u201d and, after graduating, moved to New York, which was experiencing a boom in fashion photography with the advent of supermodels and high-octane glamour rebelling against 90s minimalism. Here was the home of Irving Penn, Patrick Demarchelier and Richard Avedon, for whom Walker worked.<\/p>\n

What did he learn under Avedon\u2019s tutelage? \u201cAvedon was very good at communicating with the subject, and he was clear about connection. He would spend a lot of time with the subject before he photographed them.\u201d He\u2019d be playful with supermodels, not just telling them \u201cbeautiful, sexy!\u201d but giving instructions such as: \u201cOK, you\u2019re a crow on a branch, and there\u2019s a worm on the floor. I want you two birds to fight over the worm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker has long worked at the very top of fashion and celebrity photography. He\u2019s had a longstanding collaboration with Kate Moss and has shot the likes of Lady Gaga, Bj\u00f6rk and Frank Ocean for fashion magazine W. He tells me about his most recent W subjects: Rihanna and her baby Rocki. \u201cShe\u2019s mad!\u201d he says. \u201cShe was in Paris looking at the couture shows and said, \u2018I really want you to photograph me and my baby.\u2019\u201d The shoot was scheduled for 2pm; famously tardy, Rihanna turned up at 11pm. \u201cI\u2019ve never worked through the night with someone, but it was a vibe,\u201d Walker says. \u201cShe\u2019s someone you could photograph in seven frames and you\u2019ve got a picture, because she\u2019s so bodily aware.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s Holbeins upstairs \u2026 Paul O\u2019Grady and Julian Clary as the Glitter Queens. Photograph: Courtesy Tim Walker<\/p>\n

Not all his shoots were so successful: he mentions a 2005 session with Madonna for American Vogue. At the time, Madonna was \u201cobsessed with Cecil Beaton, in her English Lady of the Manor era\u201d. They shot at Beaton\u2019s old home in Ashcombe, which Madonna had recently bought: Walker photographed her dressed in tweed and cashmere, surrounded by chickens and holding a black lamb \u201cbecause she\u2019s the black sheep of the family\u201d.<\/p>\n

Walker feels he fumbled the attempt to merge the worlds of Beaton and Madonna. \u201cI look at all these pictures \u2013 she\u2019s actually not big enough [in the frame],\u201d he says. \u201cBut the awful thing is we had three days to do the shoot, and the first day was like a warm-up. The pictures weren\u2019t great, but I thought we\u2019ll get there. But at the end of day one she was like, \u2018We\u2019ve got the pictures, we\u2019re done!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markMadonna wanted a Guinness and food but was told the pub\u2019s kitchen was shut<\/p>\n

Madonna later joined Walker and his team in the local pub. When she walked in with then husband Guy Ritchie, \u201cthe whole pub fell silent\u201d. Madonna then asked Walker what was he was having for lunch. \u201cAnd she said, \u2018I\u2019m going to have a pint of Guinness and I\u2019m going to eat something.\u2019 So she says \u2018Excuse me\u2019 to the waitress, \u2018I\u2019m going to get what he\u2019s having.\u2019 And the young waitress goes, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, the kitchen\u2019s closed.\u2019\u201d Wow, no Madonna privilege? \u201cNot in this pub!\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker admits that he\u2019s not particularly interested in fashion. His favourite pastimes are reading (Denton Welch\u2019s In Youth Is Pleasure and Josh Silver\u2019s Fruit Fly are recent favourites) and walking his dog, Jack: \u201cThat\u2019s my absolute favourite thing to do!\u201d He is far more interested in fantasy and fairytales, lighting up when he talks me through a book of old shoots which draw on Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz. \u201cFashion isn\u2019t the reason I became a photographer, it was fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

He regrets the fact that glossy magazines are in decline, and that his work perhaps belongs to an era that is dying. On his Instagram, he often reflects on past shoots, but he has a sense of inevitability about the digital world taking over. \u201cWe\u2019re at the end of that time, which is sad. Looking at photographs in a magazine format is beautiful because of the scale. Just turning a page I lament that passing, but we are where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fairyland, then, is one way for him to continue working at an ambitious scale. I wonder if, in capturing everyday heroes, he\u2019s also revealing an exasperation with celebrity. \u201cI think as a photographer, or any creative, you\u2019re always looking for something different,\u201d he says. \u201cThat pendulum does often swing a long way from where you\u2019ve been.\u201d<\/p>\n

He leans over the scale model, closes his eyes, and muses on the six years it took to make: \u201cI\u2019ve been so nourished by these stories, and I\u2019ve been moved to tears by these stories.\u201d Fairyland may be new work, but for Walker it reframes the span of his career. \u201cDoing this show, I now realise that everything I was doing as a fashion photographer was all camp and gay. It was my gayness escaping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim Walker\u2019s Fairyland: Love and Legends is at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from 9 October to 7 February<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six years ago, Tim Walker was walking in the Highbury Fields area of London when he came across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-637769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}