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Lot Essay
In the early 1960s Tom Wesselmann challenged himself to paint what he called the Great American Nude, and the present work, Great American Nude #18 is one of the most compelling early examples from this series. Wesselmann mixed traditional oil painting with found collage elements to resuscitate what many contemporary artists then considered a dead and irrelevant convention, especially during an era that championed Abstract Expressionism and scorned figuration. Wesselmann created a new, Post-Modern type of genre painting for a post-war America: one that celebrates the shining consumer lifestyle that was the product of the American dream. He also merged elements from high and low art long before it would be come an art historical paradigm.
Great American Nude #18 centers on the voluptuous, pink silhouette of a nude woman, who reclines on a bed. Behind her, a bouquet of flowers and a kitten are perched on a windowsill. Of course, the flowers are immediately recognizable as Van Gogh's famous sunflowers, which have been cut from a poster and appliqued to the surface. The kitten is also a found image, which Wesselmann applies and then colors in with pastels to add dimension. Wesselmann has constructed an idealized reality out of ready-made imagery, keeping the situation as real as is possible, and thereby allowing the viewer to accept his vision as true.
The composition also functions as a high art homage to modern masters -Van Gogh, Matisse and Mondrian. Wesselmann's nude odalisque recalls Matisse's paintings and line drawings of women as well as his later cut-outs. He appropriates Van Gogh's sunflowers rather than attempt to simulate them. And the flat and seamless order of the forms and blocks of color recall Mondrian's work, which Wesselmann has cited as a major influence. Collage offered Wesselmann a way of introducing a ready-made slice of reality into art. He did not wish to overturn the traditional notions of painting and actually regarded himself as a formalist rather than a Pop iconoclast. The Great American Nude series, and #18 in particular, however, identify Wesselmann as a revolutionary interpreter of the genre and his times.
Great American Nude #18 centers on the voluptuous, pink silhouette of a nude woman, who reclines on a bed. Behind her, a bouquet of flowers and a kitten are perched on a windowsill. Of course, the flowers are immediately recognizable as Van Gogh's famous sunflowers, which have been cut from a poster and appliqued to the surface. The kitten is also a found image, which Wesselmann applies and then colors in with pastels to add dimension. Wesselmann has constructed an idealized reality out of ready-made imagery, keeping the situation as real as is possible, and thereby allowing the viewer to accept his vision as true.
The composition also functions as a high art homage to modern masters -Van Gogh, Matisse and Mondrian. Wesselmann's nude odalisque recalls Matisse's paintings and line drawings of women as well as his later cut-outs. He appropriates Van Gogh's sunflowers rather than attempt to simulate them. And the flat and seamless order of the forms and blocks of color recall Mondrian's work, which Wesselmann has cited as a major influence. Collage offered Wesselmann a way of introducing a ready-made slice of reality into art. He did not wish to overturn the traditional notions of painting and actually regarded himself as a formalist rather than a Pop iconoclast. The Great American Nude series, and #18 in particular, however, identify Wesselmann as a revolutionary interpreter of the genre and his times.