ABSTRACT
The general conservatism and patriotism of the 1940s and 1950s did not encourage artists to make optimistic observations either about themselves or society in general. The appalling economic and social conditions, fascism and the horrors of the Second World War encouraged artists to retreat from explorations of the truth. Either the private self-searching world was veiled behind the public imagery of solitary figures writhing or twisted in agony or in the vigorous swirls and eddies of abstract expressionism apparently uninvolved with the issues of the world or with sexuality. A more explicit art was being produced, however, for private circulation, particularly in the United States. This showed the fantasised erotic world of the homosexual subculture.
