"[Toor’s work] exerts an emotional pull that is rare, even in a t.mes of outstanding figurative painting in which style and substance, motivated by issues of identity, regularly go hand in hand."
Masterfully evoking a poetic tenderness and melancholic solitude, Three Men with Trays exemplifies Salman Toor’s singular ability to imbue the lived experiences of queer, South Asian men with art historical gravitas and potency. Executed in 2018, the present work belongs to a body of narrative paintings by the artist in which he ruminated on the scrutiny imposed on Brown men in both public and private spaces. Inspired by the paintings of Rubens, Caravaggio and Manet, Toor’s work adopts and reimagines the art historical canon to depict sorrowful and isolated men, as well as intimate moments of tenderness and joy. Having captured the attention of the art world as one of the most exciting figurative painters to emerge in recent years, Toor is prominently featured in the 60th Venice Biennale, Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere, through November 24, 2024 and was recently honored by a major solo exhibition, Salman Toor: No Ordinary Love, organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art (May 2022 - February 2024).
Right: Henri Fantin-Latour, Édouard Manet, 1867. Image © Art Institute of Chicago
Deftly rendered in soft taupe, deep brown, and rich ochre, Three Men with Trays evokes a “nocturnal” quality – a twilight of uncertainties with conflicting and precarious associations – as the present composition alternates between quietude and anxiety, isolation and belonging. Grouped together, the three central figures of the present work exude a solemn vulnerability, bearing trays that evoke routine security checks or cafeteria lines; their gazes are focused beyond the bounds of the canvas as if in anticipation of an approaching event or figure.
The sense of familiarity and relatability in Toor’s work is partly attributable to his constant allusion to the Old Master paintings which he spent years studying and copying, painstakingly adopting and incorporating their styles into his original compositions. In the present work, Toor imbues each of his subjects’ expressions with a dignity that calls to mind the iconography of the Adoration of the Magi. This strategy of painting Brown men into “the language of the humanities” parallels the work of other contemporary figurative painters, such as Kerry James Marshall, in order to upend the art historical canon to include individuals who have been ignored for centuries. As Toor has stated, "Art history has formed my imaginary map of the world, conquests, migrations, ideas of civilization, foreignness, and fashion. I like seeing the thread of the past in the present.” (Salman Toor quoted in: Cassie Packard, “Blurring the Lines between Public and Private: Salman Toor Interviewed by Cassie Packard,” BOMB, 12 February 2021 (online)).
Three Men with Trays is an exquisite example of Toor’s otherworldly ability to elicit intimacy and emotion through his uniquely figurative style, all whilst challenging the notions of race, immigration, and foreignness that permeate contemporary society. At the poetic threshold between fiction and autobiography, the unique visual lexicon of Toor’s native Pakistan and his education in Western academic painting merges to explore cultural identity and convey narrative through color, composition and form – ultimately establishing him as one of the most prescient voices in contemporary painting today.
