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| Philip Pearlstein Female Model in Adirondack Rocker, Male Model on Floor 1980 oil on linen Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Frank Auerbach Seated Nude 1961 charcoal on paper Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Jack Beal Nude with Green Chair 1966 oil on canvas Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Anonymous Artist Model on Sofa with Red Chair 1968 oil on canvas Walker Art Center, Minneapolis |
-The-New-Image-IV-1973-lithograph-Smithsonian-American-Art-Museum-Washington-DC.jpg) |
| Lillian Desow-Fishbein The New Image IV 1973 lithograph Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Leon Kroll Nude in a Blue Chair 1930 oil on canvas Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Emmanuel Sougez Reclining Nude ca. 1930 gelatin silver print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Michael Thompson Twilight Nude 1987 acrylic on canvas Museum London, Ontario |
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| Dorothy Thornhill Seated Model 1976 drawing Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney |
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| Jack Pierson Self Portrait #4 2003 inkjet print Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| André-Charles Biéler Model with Cello 1967 watercolor and ink on paper Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario |
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| Pierre Bonnard Nude, Yellow Background ca. 1924 oil on canvas Dallas Museum of Art |
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| Willem de Kooning Nude Figure - Woman on the Beach 1963 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Guggenheim Museum, New York |
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| Robert De Niro Sr. Nude in Armchair 1963 oil on canvas Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Gustave Klumpp Saluting the Nude 1972 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Evan Penny Male Shadow Grouping 1985 painted polyester resin and bronze Museum London, Ontario |
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| Pablo Picasso Seated Nude 1969 crayon on paper Walker Art Center, Minneapolis |
-Le-Lever-1955-oil-on-canvas-Scottish-National-Gallery-of-Modern-Art-Edinburgh.jpg) |
| Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski) Le Lever 1955 oil on canvas Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh |
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| Irving Penn Alexandra Beller, New York 1999 gelatin silver print Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
The Doodler
Most recent in the long race that descends
From me, welcome! and least askew of ikons
That grow on a new page like rapid lichens
Among the telephone numbers of new friends.
These I commune with every day. Hellos,
Goodbyes. Often by dusk a pair of eyes
Is all I draw; the pencil stupefies
Their lids with kohl until they almost close
But then do not, as if, more animate
Than any new friend's voice flattened by news,
Guessing some brilliant function I refuse,
And why, and wanting to accept their fate.
Noses, as yet, alas, revert to profile,
Lips, too, are pursed in this or that direction,
Or raised to other lips from sheer distraction;
To mine, not once. While still, just as at Deauville
Off-season, tiny hands are better hidden
By great muffs of albino porcupine.
Indeed, nothing I do is at all fine
Save certain abstract forms. These come unbidden:
Stars, oblongs linked, or a baroque motif
Expressed so forcibly that it indents
A blank horizon generations hence
With signs and pressures, massing to relief
Like thunderheads one day in sultry foretaste
Of flashes first envisioned as your own
When, squat and breathless, you inscribe on stone
Your names for me, my inkling of an artist –
Or Who-in-wrath-puts-down-the-Black-Receiver –
And, more than image then, a rain, a river
Of prescience, you reflect and I rejoice!
Far, far behind already is that aeon
Of pinheads, bodies each a ragged weevil,
Slit-mouthed and spider-legged, with eyes like gravel,
Wavering under trees of purple crayon.
Shapes never realized, were you dogs or chairs?
That page is brittle now, if not long burned.
This morning's little boy stands (I have learned
To do feet) gazing down a flight of stairs.
And when A. calls to tell me he enjoyed
The evening, I begin again. Again
Emerge, O sunbursts, garlands, creatures, men,
Ever more lifelike out of the white void!
– James Merrill (1959)