Jürgen Wittdorf: Berlin gallery revives homoerotic art of communist era

In what would have been artist's 90th year, first retrospective at Biesdorf Palace has been a surprise success

Seven men wash the sweat off their toned bodies in a communal shower. Unless you squint and mistake a tightly gripped bar of soap for something else, their limbs are suspended in tantalising proximity but never quite touch.

The German artist Jurgen Wittdorf's 1963 linocut print, from a series titled Youth and Sport, may look like something out of a top-shelf graphic novel or the virile drawings of the gay liberation icon Tom of Finland.