Great American Nude #36
Artist
Tom Wesselmann
American, 1931–2004
Date1962
Mediumcollage of offset lithographs, enamel and polymer paint, and textiles on composition board
Dimensionsboard: 121.9 x 152.4 cm (48 x 60 in.)
ClassificationsCollages / Assemblages
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number1965.393
Label TextTom Wesselmann’s signature series of Great American Nudes, begun in 1961, was inspired by a dream about the colors red, white, and blue. At the time, much of the United States saw itself as an upwardly-mobile. It still enjoyed the postwar boom of optimism and productivity that defined the Kennedy years and experiencing a loosening of cultural attitudes toward nudity and sexuality. This was the America Wesselmann reflected in his update of a traditional painting subject—the reclining female nude in a domestic space. Here, a life-size “all-American beauty” is presented as a commodified, objectified, and sexualized symbol of status, permissiveness, and exploitation. In Great American Nude #36, Wesselmann depicts the intimate using the language of the consumer. Here, desire and commodity—of the woman, the suburban landscape, and the copy of a Matisse still life painting—has been replaced by a photomechanical reproduction. Further, Wesselmann’s use of a number in the title emphasizes the nude's production-line availability.
ProvenanceGreen Gallery, New York, NY
On View
Not on view
