Window VIII

Suffused light caressing this man’s torso conveys a sensual vulnerability, and backlighting emphasizes his peaceful expression. The artist, George Tooker, took great care to convey the tender beauty of the Black male body. Tooker created a series of paintings between the 1950s and 1980s in which a window frames single or coupled figures. The compositions were inspired by the artist’s New York City neighborhood, where residents were drawn to their windows to seek respite from the heat or to view the street life below. Tooker was an openly gay man who identified as biracial; his mother was Cuban, and his father was white. He intentionally depicted figures with mixed or often ambiguous gender, sexual, and racial identities in order to break down the prejudices that posed dangerous consequences for such communities.

Tooker’s paintings have layered meanings. The Arabic inscription across the top, loosely translated to “may God please [or satisfy] you,” was included in honor of the then-recently slain activist Malcolm X, whom Tooker admired.