Karl & Daniel, London
- Artist: Sunil Gupta
- Date: 1985, printed 2018
- Medium: Photograph, inkjet print on paper
- Dimensions: image: 500 x 330 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the Karl & Daniel, London by Sunil Gupta. It comes from his Lovers: Ten Years On series, a collection of black‑and‑white portraits taken between 1984 and 1986 that captured gay and lesbian couples from his own social circles in London and Newcastle. The photograph shows Karl and Daniel seated in a cosy living‑room, arms entwined, looking straight into the camera. The composition is deliberately reminiscent of traditional family portraits – the couple is centered, the lighting soft, the surroundings familiar. The series was produced in the shadow of the early AIDS crisis, when media coverage often painted queer relationships as deviant. Gupta’s images counter that narrative by portraying these men as ordinary, middle‑class professionals, living normal domestic lives. Many of the couples in the series later succumbed to the disease, adding a layer of poignancy. The print was made in 2018, but the moments captured are anchored in the early 1980s, a time of both hope and fear in the LGBTQ+ community. Gupta’s work invites viewers to consider how love and intimacy were expressed, and how society’s view of them shifted during that turbulent decade.
See it in person
Karl & Daniel, London is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
