Museum Bums

An oil painting showing four figures wearing American football costumes in different poses

It's of utmost importance that you focus on the American football match, and not the shootings, or the list, or the demolition of any east wings, or the felon president, ok? 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

"Four football players", c1930, Carl Sprinchorn, from the Whitney Museum of American Art 😁

#TodayInQueerHistory
Feb 8 (1931)
You can't deny James Dean (born #OTD) is a cultural icon, despite starring in only 3 films. According to biographers he had relations with men & women. He quipped "Well, I'm certainly not going through life with one hand tied behind my back" about his orientation.

A painting of a nude study with a figure knelt on a stool peering behind a box

When you've already searched behind this box for your missing sock, but you might as well have another look anyway 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

Gustave Courbet's "Study of a Nude Man", early 1840s, from @metmuseum.org 😁

A set of four prints of a black and white photo of a torso and bum, with different coloured bright backgrounds

Bum Bum Bum Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmm
👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums
Andy Warhol's "Torso (Male Buttocks)", 1977 at KMSKA, Antwerp

Thanks @ma-at.bsky.social for sharing 😁

🥰🥰🥰

Some very shiny and very muscley bronze statues being all shiny and muscley in a museum

When you're on bottle 6 of baby oil and there are somehow still bits that aren't shiny, and the swimsuit round is in 4 minutes!! 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

"Carlos V and Fury, without Armor" by Leone Leoni and Pompeo Leoni, c1551, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Thanks @griffithstephen for sharing 😁

Yessssssssssss 😍

A pencil sketch of a topless hunky sailor getting a tattoo on his chest from an equally hunky tattoo artist

"Ok, but you know I can only do Bart Simpson or Velma from Scooby-Doo though, right??" 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

@tomoffinland.org 's "The Tattooed Sailor", 1961. Part of the *glorious* Tom/Beryl Cook exhibition at Studio Voltaire, London in 2024

A sketch showing a scene where an army are relaxing on the banks of the river Arno, having just had a communal bath. Most of them haven't noticed the surprise attack happening from behind them by the pesky Pisans

This preparatory sketch is all that survives of Michelangelo's "Battle of Cascini", intended to be hung in the Palazzo Vechio opposite a Da Vinci 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

The painting was deliberately cut up to signal to its patron, Duke Medici, that he had lost favour with the well-to-do of Florence! 😱

A ceramic figure wearing an old fashioned style bathing suit and swimming cap, with stylised waves around their legs

It's day 5 million of it being cold and dark and drizzly in the UK. Let's all go somewhere where we get fun tanlines from our bathing suits 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

This figurine was made by W. Fritsch, c1935 for Puls, and is at the Národni Tecknické Muzeum in Czechia

Thanks @pdot.at for sharing 😁

A sketch of a figure who looks like they're using a complicated piece of gym equipment (properly?)

When you're not 100% certain you're using this gym machine correctly, but no-one's laughed yet so you keep going 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

Zapuščine, študijsko in dokumentarno gradivo, from Museu.Ms (undated)
😁

There's so much to see! 😁

A collection of statues with one figure facing forward and three turned away. The one facing forward looks as if they're reprimanding the viewer

Hey! Stop looking at their bums! Stop it!! DON'T LOOK AT THEIR BUMS!!! 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

A cast of a charioteer from Delphi, Greece, c478 BCE trying to gatekeep these hunks at the @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social 😁

A man kneeling on front of some books

It never gets old seeing @museumbums.bsky.social in the wild!
Spotted in the V&A gift shop 🥰
If you're coming along on a tour this afternoon (kick off at 4!) you can pick up a copy 👍🏛️🍑

A charcoal study of a male nude seated on a pedestal, seen from the back

When your @nhm-london.bsky.social x Pokémon merch arrives water-damaged because the courier "successfully delivered" the parcel over the garden fence and then it got rained on for hours 😤😭
👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

"Study of a nude seated", c1600, Giovanni Baglione, Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford

Let us know if you do! We'll come and do a reading and sign copies 😁👍🏛️🍑

The Museum Bums book cover

Happy Pay Day, everyone! Treat yourself to that excellent value purchase you've been waiting for... shop.ashmolean.org/products/mus... 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

We have an excellent recommendation for you, AND buy it from your local museum or indie bookshop, and you can feel even better about your bargain 😁

a picture of a penguin with the word hello on it ALT: a picture of a penguin with the word hello on it

😁

It's nearly tour time again!

On Saturday 31 Jan, I'll be leading a tour of V&A, exploring LGBTQIA+ histories from across time, space and cultures.
When? 4-5
Where? V&A (meet under the blue and green chandelier)
Booking? Just rock up and say hi
👍🏛️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

A photo at an oblique angle showing a statue of two figures intertwined, in an old fashioned museum gallery

The cast courts at the V&A display copies of sculptures from across the world. Like scrolling through your mates' holiday Instagram but without the burning jealousy 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

Mercury and Psyche, (orig 1594, Adrien de Vries) plaster cast made 1865 in Paris, now at the V&A

A photo of a statue in a museum gallery with very directed lighting to show the pronounced curve of the statue's bum

And the Oscar for dramatic museum lighting goes to.... France's The Museum of Romanity's "The Roman Emperor, a mortal among the gods" exhibition 👏👏👏👏
#MuseumBums 👍🏛️🍑

Thanks @lydiam31.bsky.social for sharing 😁

A statue showing a muscled figure with a lion biting their butt

When you're so hungry, rational thought goes out of the window 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

Milo of Croton, a Greek athlete who died attacked by either a lion or a wolf. He couldn't escape because he'd got his finger stuck in a tree 🤔

By Pierre Puget in 1682, in Marseille, France

A zoomed in photo showing the gold figure

A zoomed out photo showing the context of the gold figure on top of the dome of a grand Edinburgh building

When you're in Edinburgh, look up! This 6ft tall, gold-leafed "The Figure of Youth" right at the top of the Old College building was based on Edinburgh boxer and athlete, Anthony Hall. Sculpted in 1888, by John Hutchison 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

A photo of the bronze statue of Zeus, holding his arm out. Above him is the strip of gallery lighting, with the perspective making it look as if he's holding the lighting in his outstretched hand

Ohhh, it kinda looks like the gallery lighting is Zeus' thunderbolt... Kinda? ⚡
👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

Cast of a bronze original found in 1928 near a shipwreck that had sunk in c100BCE near a Greek island. This one's at the @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social 😁

A charcoal sketch showing the entire paper covered in a jumble of figures

We count 8 visible bums! Can you see any more? 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

"The virtues of matrimony expelling the vices and ills", Agnolo Bronzino, 1565, from the Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford 😁

For your viewing pleasure: bsky.app/profile/muse... 😁👍🏛️🍑

Mathieu Forget's portrait of Nikola Karabatic jumping with a ball in his hand. In the foreground is a bright white marble statue who's robe is in danger of slipping off

For the 2024 Paris Olympics, Mathieu Forget took dynamic airborne photos of French Olympians in iconic Parisian locations 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

Here's Paul Dubois' "Narcissus", 1867, doing his best to upstage Nikola Karabatic at Musee D'Orsay 😁

You'll have to take your complaint up with the artist 🤷‍♂️

An artwork showing a clown failing to draw the attention of two circus-goers, who are watching the elephants instead

Brooklyn obviously found it a challenge to talk about the beautiful but difficult to photograph animal in the room 🐘👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums

"Amusing the Ladies", 1939, James Patrick, from the American National Gallery of Art, in DC

A photo of a statue in an outside gallery. You can see bright sky and cypress trees in the background

On cold, wet, rainy English mornings, we like to spirit ourselves back to the sunny, bright, warm Agora in Athens 🌞 👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums