Wednesday, April 16, 2025

The Modern Model

Isabel Bishop
Nude
1925
etching
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York


Pablo Picasso
Trois Nus debout
1927
etching
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Alfred Cheney Johnston
Model peeking into Camera
ca. 1930
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Alfred Cheney Johnston
Nude with Drapery
ca. 1925
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Ivor Hele
Reclining Figure
1929
drawing
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Ivor Hele
Kneeling Figure
1929
drawing
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Edward Hopper
Study of Model
ca. 1920-25
drawing
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

John Carroll
Figure Study
ca. 1930
drawing
New Britain Museum of American Art

Harold Cazneaux
Julian Ashton with Life Model
ca. 1920-22
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Axel Fridell
Model in the Studio
ca. 1925
etching and drypoint
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Otto Gussmann
Model on Sofa
1924
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Richard Müller
Drawing Class at the Academy
1920
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Harry Wickey
Wrestlers #1
1927
etching
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

John Passmore
Seated Model
ca. 1930-35
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Gladys Nelson Smith
Portrait of a Model (Reggio)
ca. 1925-30
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Grigory Gluckmann
Reclining Model
1934
watercolor on paper
Art Institute of Chicago

Edward Hagedorn
Nude
ca. '1930
etching
Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Washington DC

Gaston Lachaise
Figure Study
ca. 1931
drawing
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Jacques Lipchitz
Standing Model
ca. 1930
drawing
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Orfeo

Ah downward through the dark coulisse,
Impelled to walk the stage of hell,
Unwind as in a theater gilt and puce
His opulence of pain until

Each damned soul dropped its trembling fan
(Which in the gusts of wooing trembled still)
And wept to hear him: it was then
Sickeningly he divined, but with an odd thrill,

Among the shadows of a box
That brow, that hand outspread upon
The plush worn bare, a white peacock's 
Genius at dusk on a dissolving lawn,

Her loss within his music's rise and fall
Having become perpetual.

– James Merrill (1959)