Art © Estate of Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Currently not on view
Great American Nude #62,
1965
Tom Wesselmann, 1931–2004; born Cincinnati, OH; died New York, NY; active New York
y1993-161
Like other Pop artists, Wesselmann infused traditional genres—such as portraiture, landscape, still-life, and the nude—with a popular sensibility appropriate to his time. The artist began Great American Nudes, the series for which he is best known, in 1961. These contemporary odalisques mimic those of neoclassical painters like Ingres and modern artists such as Matisse as much as they do mass-produced soft-core erotica. Stripped of both their clothes and their personalities, Wesselmann’s nudes resemble objects more than people. The artist was one of many who abandoned the square or rectangular canvas in favor of the shaped canvas in the 1960s: here, the outlines of the support reiterate the curves of the woman’s body.
Information
Title
Great American Nude #62
Dates
1965
Maker
Medium
Liquitex polymer paint on plywood
Dimensions
maximum: 111 × 152.4 × 4.4 cm (43 11/16 × 60 × 1 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Peter H. Sharp, Caroline M. Sharp, and Randall A. Sharp
Object Number
y1993-161
Inscription
Dated and signed on verso in red marker, right: GAN #62/43 x 60"/1965/Wesselmann/LIQUID POLYMER/PAINT ON GESSO/ON NOVA PLY (U.S./PLYWOOD)/LIQUITEX MATTE/VARNISH.
Culture
Type
Subject
Tom Wesselmann, New York, New York, sold; to private collector, consigned; to [Christie's, New York, New York, November 17, 1977, no. 31: Peter Jay Sharp Collection], sold; to Peter H. Sharp, Caroline M. Sharp, and Randall A. Sharp, Pleasantville, New York; gift to Princeton University Art Museum, 1993.
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1993", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 53, no. 1 (1994): p. 46-95., p. 89
- Johanna Burton et al., Pop art: contemporary perspectives, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT: distributed by Yale University Press, 2007), p. 143 (color illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 279
