Hugh Steers’ Paintings Captured Bleakness and Hope

Steers skillfully captured the intimate everyday joys and horrors of existence, creating work that feels both somber and bright, while highlighting the powerful emotional paradox of life. An artist gaining traction in the art world and garnering critical acclaim in the late 80s and 90s, Steers died tragically young, at thirty-two, of AIDS-related complications in 1995. 

The exhibition title, Conjuring Tenderness, was inspired by a quote about painting from Steers in 1994, “It's like conjuring... It's as if painting it will make it become real. That painting of a man holding another man is conjuring that tenderness, that hope that someone will still care about you and will be there.” The exhibition will also include works never before seen publicly.

Steers studied art at Yale University, graduating cum laude in 1985. He immediately moved to New York, living in cheap tenements and illegal sublets, while he focused on his art and entered wholeheartedly into the queer nightlife scene.

Celebrated for his allegorical figurative tableaux, despite figurative work being seen as unfashionable at the time, Steers used his art to spotlight and normalize everyday queer experience. 

His subjects— usually gay men— can be found: lounging voluptuously on second hand sofas in tiny beige apartments; trying on drag outfits, amidst Chinese take-out containers; comforting ailing friends or lovers in tiled bathrooms; and engaging in all the gorgeous mundanity of existence. 

Born into a political family— his uncle was Gore Vidal— Steers was an activist. After his HIV diagnosis in 1987, his art focus shifted to AIDS awareness. Dating from the year of his diagnosis, the exhibition traces subtle shifts in Steers’ subjects and presentation. 

There are figures in various situations with hoods or paper bags over their heads, a series of men in hospital gowns— some defiantly wearing heels— and lone men using megaphones to speak towards an absent audience. 

The motif of the hooded figure evokes both surrealistic work and the practice of hooding people about to be executed. Not only does this bring into play the surrealism of dealing with untimely death, but it signals society’s refusal to recognize and respond to the AIDS crisis, as well as the consequent erasure of the queer experience. Painted with passion, humor, and pathos, Steers’ work exemplifies creative persistence in the midst of tragedy.