John Minton was a celebrated figure in Neo-Romanticism and London’s Bohemia of the 1940s. He was a member of the London Group, formed by a band of radical artists to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Minton’s main artistic theme, partly homoerotic, was the young male figure in an emotionally charged setting. In this painting, Minton alters the traditional dynamic between the dominant artist and their passive model. The model was his friend, the actor Norman Bowler, best known for his role as Frank Tate in the TV series Emmerdale. Minton was himself gay, at a time when homosexuality was illegal, and was often attracted to unavailable men. Outwardly a charming and charismatic figure, he struggled with self-doubt and self-destruction and aged 39 took his own life with a drug overdose. (https://artuk.org/discover/stories/exhibition-in-focus-meeting-modernism-20th-century-art-in-the-russell-cotes-collection)