Andrew Heard: I Want To Be Good

29 May-8 Aug 2026

PV 28 May 2026, 6-8pm

Overview

Curated by Dominic Johnson.

Amanda Wilkinson will present the first exhibition of Andrew Heard’s paintings in the United Kingdom in more than three decades. Heard’s post-pop paintings of the 1980s and early 1990s often integrated ‘low’ cultural references from British and American TV, film and music hall, with biting, sardonic textual components. His most characteristic paintings of the 1980s centre iconic but already passé or parochial personae from British popular culture: Charles Hawtrey, Terry-Thomas, Kenneth Williams and Benny Hill; or stars of ‘Golden Era’ British cinema, like Rita Tushingham, Deborah Kerr, and Albert Finney.
Art critic Louisa Buck wrote of Heard that ‘no artist has been as successful in capturing the tawdry Carry-On culture of Britain in the late Fifties and Sixties with its forgotten jingles, minor celebrities and suburban sitcoms. Yet there is nothing whimsical about Heard’s sharply witty, hard-edged paintings.’ They are suffused with a melancholic attachment to a lost Britishness deemed both hallowed and ridiculous. This attachment is sincere and derisive, nostalgic and pejorative, and his wry humour is also attached to other orders of images, including gay-coded objects of attraction, like male pinups, boxers, and skinheads.
In 1988, after the death of his friend and former partner David Robilliard, Heard’s aesthetic sensibility took a more melancholic turn. His later paintings, including I Want to be Good (1992), which gives this exhibition its title, are shaped by the structures of feeling associated with HIV/AIDS, including fear, stigma, loss and grief.

Heard was born in Hertford, England in 1958, and studied at Chelsea School of Art (1979-80). He was highly regarded by major contemporary artists including David Hockney, Gilbert & George, John Stezaker, and Derek Jarman, all of whom supported and/or wrote about his work. Heard died from an AIDS-related illness in London in January 1993.

The exhibition will feature a selection of Heard’s large, powerful, virtuosic paintings, spanning the full scope of his career from 1981 to his last work. This exhibition is guest curated by Dominic Johnson, and supported by the artist’s estate, which is now represented by Amanda Wilkinson. It is accompanied by a publication and a panel discussion at Tate Modern on 12 June 2026.

Join art historian Dominic Johnson and guest speakers at Tate Modern on Friday 12 June to explore the world of Andrew Heard (1958-1993), whose queer perspective transformed British post-pop art in the 1980s and 1990s. Examining queer identity, visual culture and artistic legacy, this conversation will illuminate an important but little-discussed artist.