Derek Jarman: It Was 20 Years Ago Today

In the (perhaps artificial) historical perspective of this anniversary, Jarman cuts a curiously old-fashioned figure for an avant-garde enfant terrible. An Edwardian Andy Warhol, a Victorian Jean Cocteau, yet terribly English, born out of a Noël Coward upbringing – his RAF father, the colonial, middle-class background. Perhaps that explains the elegiac quality of his sense of the past, forever seen through his Super 8 lens.

Ultimately, Jarman's was a love-hate relationship with "England". How ironic that it is this fractured connection, an accident of birth and what he called "a barbed-wire crèche", which defines him as an artist of lasting significance. And how remarkable the shift in that landscape – from the cold war of Jarman's youth and the queer war of his career, to now, a society in which gay marriage is promoted by a Tory prime minister...

Philip Hoare pays tribute to Derek Jarman on the 20th anniversary of his death in The Independent.

Thought this was interesting as it foregrounds Derek Jarman's poshness - arguably as central to his work as his sexuality.

PS This is hilarious - Peter Tatchell pays tribute to Jarman by writing about... Saint Peter!

Update: There are two Jarman books out to mark the anniversary. Colin MacCabe reviews them - and him -for NS.