"The figures dealt primarily with their presence. Almost all faces were left off because the nudes were not intended to be portraits in any sense. Personality would interfere with the bluntness of the fact of the nude. When body features were included, they were those important to erotic implication, like lips and nipples. There was no modeling, no hint at dimension. Simply drawn lines were virtually a collage element—the addition of drawing to the painting.”
L auded for its innovative use of material, demonstrative understanding of art history, and clever use of contemporaneous references, Great American Nude #43, executed in 1963, is unequivocally considered one of the finest examples of the artist’s boundary-breaking early paintings of the 60s. Tom Wesselmann’s historically significant and critically acclaimed Great American Nude series propelled him to the forefront of the American Pop Art movement of the 1960s. The series laid the foundations for the legendary artist’s artistic vision and dedication to classical figurative painting. In Great American Nude #43, Wesselmann depicts a sumptuous and dark haired nude female figure reclining on a blue sofa. He paints the elongated silhouette of the subject’s provocative pose in sumptuous pink, with the ajar door and open curtains, creating a suggestively invitative setting for the viewer. Hanging just behind the female figure, Jasper Johns’s seminal masterpiece “Three Flags” from 1958, is set just above a 1962 television set. The sloped hood of a Volkswagen Beetle parked in the driveway is visible through the open window. In the present work, both object and subject become a tantalizing erotic fantasy of Post-War suburban life in America.
RIGHT: WILLEM DE KOONING, NUDE FIGURE - WOMAN ON THE BEACH, 1963. THE PEGGY GUGGENHEIM collects ION, VENICE. © 2022 THE WILLEM DE KOONING FOUNDATION / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK
Great American Nude #43 is representative of Wesselmann’s early and revolutionary exploration of the traditional subject of the female nude. Originally inspired by the aesthetics of Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s, Wesselmann sought to develop his own interpretation of the nude and still-life genre championed by the 19th Century French painters such as Édouard Manet and Gustave Courbet. Typical of his most prized early examples, the present work combines the sensual odalisque subjects of the 19th Century artists with the bold color palette and tactile painting style of 20th Century icons like Henri Matisse and Willem de Kooning. Wesselmann was particularly interested in Matisse, and referenced the French master’s work throughout the Great American Nude series, which he started in 1961 and would eventually encompass 100 works created over 10 years. A 1961 exhibition of Matisse’s cut-outs at the Museum of Modern Art, New York played a critical role in Wesselmann’s adoption of his predecessor’s use of bold colors and sensual imagery. Even though the works are conspicuously informed by the European legacy of the representation, he unabashedly infused his paintings with the unmistakable iconography of American Pop. The present work is thus the very origin of the unique and distinctive visual language that came to define Wesselmann’s career.
Created in 1963, Great American Nude #43 encapsulates Wesselmann’s aesthetic development and the inclusion of real-life objects in his works. Across the expansive surface of the present work, Wesselmann has tacked plated fabric and a real working television integrated into the canvas. The dimensionality of the board itself lends a sculptural quality to the composition; an enveloping scene which tantalizingly draws the viewer in, leading the eye across the sumptuous surface from plush velvet to brusky paint strokes. Along the upper edge of the composition, Wesselmann succinctly encapsulates three critically distinct forms of viewership: from Jasper Johns’ Three Flags, to the television set to the window, the composition invites us to look deeper into this imagined scene. While the diversity of his chosen materials placed Wesselman’s practice at the center of Pop art, his preoccupation with the female figure distinguished him from his contemporaries. And even though some of his work—especially his still lifes—explored some of the more ubiquitous themes of Pop, throughout his career he kept returning to the themes of sex and the erotic that first explored in the Great American Nude series. In many ways, this series was the artist’s response and contribution to the sexual revolution in 1960s America, when shifting social and cultural norms liberalized attitudes towards sex and morality and sex became more widely discussed and accepted across media, film, literature, and art.
To this day, Wesselmann’s work remains deeply significant, inspiring subsequent generations of artists who have sought to create a contemporary interpretation of the t.mes less subject of the female nude. Contemporary artists whose work depicts a fresh spin on the female nude, such as Mickalene Thomas, Jenna Gribbon, have looked to Wesselmann as an example of how sensuality can be reinvented using color, unorthodox material, and contemporary references.
Developing his own unique visual language featuring Americanized renditions of classical European representational paintings of the female nude, Wesselmann adopted a wholly original approach to Pop art that distinguished him from his peers. The Great American Nude paintings marked Wesselmann’s breakout moment as an artist after which his career took flight. With its pioneering use of media and seductive subject-matter, the present work is a remarkable and prototypical example of the series with which the artist made his name.
