Toor was born in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1983, and lives and works in New York. His paintings capture everyday moments in the lives of fictional young, queer, Brown men. Set within private and public environments, these scenes speak of a wealth of feelings and experiences, ranging from touching domestic intimacy and love, to communal solidarity, to societal precarity and violence. While abundantly concerned with contemporary life and identity, Salman’s paintings are informed by a deep passion for historic art, both in Western and South Asian traditions. The result is a body of work of immense technical sensitivity and beauty, shot through with poignancy and wit.
Backseat Boy, 2023
Salman Toor
He reflects on the growing complexity of his references to the Western tradition of painting in relation to his subject matter. He discusses how the “mist and gaseousness” of a particular shade of green has helped him create particular moods and atmospheres in his work. He talks about playing with conventions in the depictions of certain types of bodies, and exploring and subverting orientalist and racist tropes.
Among many other references, he recalls the early influence of Paul Delaroche’s The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833) and Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period, the enduring impact of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, whose sweetness is like “a cup of tea with five teaspoons”, and suggests that he enjoys painters who embark on “slightly crazy” transformations of academic painting traditions. He expresses his ongoing admiration for Anton Chekhov’s short stories and discusses how Whitney Houston’s music was important to him and his “chosen family” in his early years in New York. Plus, he gives insight into his life in the studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?
Walking Back, 2025
Salman Toor
- Salman Toor: Wish Maker, Luhring Augustine Chelsea and Tribeca, New York, 1 May-21 June
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture platform. Bloomberg Connects offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single click, with new guides being added regularly. They include numerous museums and galleries that have shown and collected Salman Toor’s work, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Hayward Gallery in London and the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA). The guide to the BMA includes in-depth content about an ambitious initiative called Turn Again to the Earth, which encourages conversation and action in relation to climate change and the museum. Eight community advisory members for the project have each selected one work in the BMA’s collection and, in an audio guide, share their personal perspectives on its relationship to climate justice.
