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    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992

    Hugh Steers

    Bandages, 1992
    Oil on canvas
    59 7/8 x 41 7/8 in (152.1 x 106.4 cm)
    61 7/8 x 43 7/8 x 2 7/8 in framed (157.2 x 111.4 x 7.3 cm framed)
    EHS014

    Further images

    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 1 ) Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 2 ) Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 3 ) Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 4 ) Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 5 ) Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 6 ) Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    • (View a larger image of thumbnail 7 ) Hugh Steers, Bandages, 1992
    Hugh Steers was a figurative painter who was diagnosed with HIV in 1987, ultimately succumbing to AIDS-related complications in 1995 at the age of 32. For the duration of his...
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    Hugh Steers was a figurative painter who was diagnosed with HIV in 1987, ultimately succumbing to AIDS-related complications in 1995 at the age of 32. For the duration of his tragically short career, he created melancholy, yet radiant compositions of everyday life that documented the devastation of the AIDS epidemic while celebrating Queer identity and desire.


    In Bandages (1992), Steers paints a male figure, nude except for diaper-like bandages, examining his neck in a bedroom mirror. The ambiguous image is haunted by the specter of AIDS. The disease is obliquely referenced not just by the bandages the man wears, but also by his actions—studying his lymph nodes to see if they are swollen—and the three large bottles of pills that rest on the desk in his room. Capturing the precarity and uncertainty of the illness, Steers’s canvas evokes the emotional devastation of the epidemic, in which individuals were forced to confront the vicissitudes of the disease alone with little hope of recovery.

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    Provenance

    Estate of Hugh Steers

    Exhibitions

    2021: Hugh Steers: Strange State of Being, Alexander Gray Associates, New York, NY
    2000: Hugh Steers: Early Works, Richard Anderson Fine Arts, New York, NY

    Literature

    Kennedy, Lisa. “Hugh Steers,” Out Magazine, October 2000.

    Trout, Hank. “A Strange State of Being.” A&U Magazine, March 15, 2021.

    Publications

    Schröder, Barbara and Karen Kelly, eds. Hugh Steers: The Complete Paintings, 1983-1994. New York: Visual AIDS, 2015, pp. 138, 223.
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