John Wood, a 79-year-old former telecoms engineer, is showcasing his first ever solo exhibition of erotic photographs depicting Glasgow's gay leather subculture at Celine gallery in Glasgow. The portraits, taken over a 20-year period from 1982 to 2002 in a converted attic in the West End of Glasgow, remained unseen by the public for decades. The show features nine images selected from hundreds in Wood's archive, including Polaroids and gelatin silver prints of men in leather jackets, gloves, boots, and military-style caps.
From Telecoms Engineer to Underground Photographer
Wood began teaching himself photography as a teenager by studying magazines. By day, he worked in the sound department at BBC Scotland in the 1970s before spending the rest of his career as an engineer with British Telecom. At night, he documented Glasgow's leather scene, introduced to him by a former partner. “He had a gay life before me and he’d kept up with these people who were all part of this leather crowd,” Wood said. “They kept nagging me to photograph them, so I thought: ‘Why not?’”
Wood describes his images as “collaborative photographs,” noting that his subjects often dictated the poses. “I think they were probably restricted by their very tight leather clothes, so they couldn’t move very much,” he said. “So my input regarding the posing was pretty minimal. It was mostly the lighting and the look of the photograph itself.” He frequently printed his work in duplicate, keeping one set and giving the other to his sitter.
Context of the 1980s and 1990s Glasgow Gay Scene
Male homosexuality was only decriminalised in Scotland for those over 21 in 1981, the same year the first cases of AIDS were diagnosed in the UK. Wood was struck by how “confident they all seemed” in leather. “They’ve got all these fantastic clothes that they never get a chance to wear, really, except maybe going to a particular leather bar at the odd weekend,” he said. “So I think it gave them a space to show off.”
Unlike Robert Mapplethorpe, with whom his work is often compared, Wood was not part of the leather subculture. “It’s funny because I’m not into leather at all. It’s just not my scene,” he said. Despite the fetish clothing, Wood insists the sessions were not sexual: “There was nothing sexual about taking the actual photographs – you know, there was no orgy at the end of the session!” he joked. “There are images of naked guys in various poses that are maybe quite erotic, but there are no erections or anything like that.”
Discovery and Curation by Steven Grainger
The exhibition was curated by Scottish artist and researcher Steven Grainger, who was introduced to Wood as part of his research into gay artists in Glasgow in the 1980s and 1990s. When Grainger first visited Wood’s flat in January 2026, he expected holiday photos but found about 20 archive boxes of photographs. “I thought I was going to look at holiday pictures, like photo albums or something,” Grainger said. “But then John brought out an archive box and started showing me his photographs. I soon realised that there were about 20 archive boxes.”
The duo became friends, and when an opening came up at Celine gallery, an artist-run space in Glasgow’s Southside, Grainger curated the exhibition, distilling hundreds of images into nine final selections. “Had I known about John when I started art school,” Grainger said, “I think my life would have been quite different.”
Cultural Significance and Legacy
Wood’s portraits capture a sense of masculine peacocking integral to the gay leather scene. Notable images include “Stephen (1996/2026),” depicting a man in a leather jacket and underpants bending over to tie his boot lace, and “Roberto and Andrew,” showing a couple embracing as one tickles the other’s nipples. Wood’s work offers a glimpse into a hidden world, showing that even under the shadow of the AIDS crisis, gay men in Glasgow lived full, sexual lives.
The exhibition runs on Saturdays until 2 August at Celine, Glasgow. This article was amended on 17 July 2026 to correct the location of the gallery.
