GILBERT & GEORGE, Britain’s most shocking artistic team, are as enigmatic as they are successful. Their work, which can fetch up to £485,000 at auction, will occupy a floor of Tate Modern next year.

Their talent for creating shock art appeared to be undiminished this week at the opening of their exhibition Sonofagod: Was Jesus Heterosexual? at the White Cube gallery in Hoxton, East London.

But no matter how much controversy they have provoked by speculating on the sexuality of Christ, the truth of their own sexuality may be the ultimate in shock art. The revelation that George is married with children and lives a few miles from his family is a rare glimpse into the workings of the artist’s mind. The disclosure gives art critics a new insight into George Passmore’s collaboration with Gilbert Proesch, a pairing that has placed them among the most important British artists of the past 20 years.

Despite routinely referring to sexuality in their work — including a picture, unveiled this week, of a pair of crucified figures suggestively joined at the hip — the two have been coy when discussing their past relationships. George, 64, has described his relationship with Gilbert, 62, as love at first sight, but when the pair met on September 25, 1967, George had been married for three months, The Times has established. He met Patricia Stevens when they were fine-art students. On June 19, 1967, they were married in a low-key ceremony at a register office in Stepney, East London, witnessed by George’s brother, Alec.

Within two months, at the same time that George met Gilbert, Patricia had conceived, and a daughter, Sunny, was born on May 22, 1968. Although he has declared that Gilbert was his greatest love, George did not regard his marriage as a short-term affair. Patricia, who was born in Salford, returned to her home in Liverpool during her pregnancy, but by the time of her second child she was living with George in East London.

The couple had a son, Rayne, in 1972, at Mile End Hospital, a short walk from George’s present house in Spitalfields, East London, where he has lived with Gilbert for more than 30 years. George’s family grew up a few miles away in a suburban house in Hackney. Patricia, who is three years younger than George, became a head teacher at the Alice Model Nursery School, close to where they were married in Stepney. Now retired, she dabbles in art. The family home, a semi-detached brick house in a tree-lined street, is similar in appearance to George’s house, with wooden shutters on the ground floor. On the top floor there is a screen marked with slogans such as “Love and peace”, which echo the couple’s 1960s values that inspired them to name their children after meteorological events. Both Sunny and Rayne live nearby in East and North London.

George remains in contact with his previously secret family and has met his daughter-in-law. He declined to discuss his own family but is known to disapprove of families as the dominant unit in society. There is no record of George and Patricia having divorced. When asked whether he would like to marry Gilbert, George said: “We prefer to live in sin. We are the ideal feminist couple. We have equality in our relationship.”

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