Standing Nude (Variation No. 7)
Artist
Tom Wesselmann
Cincinnati 1931 – New York 2004
Title
Standing Nude (Variation No. 7)
Date
1985
Materials
Enamel paint on cut-out steel
Dimensions
140 x 45.5 x 0.5 cm
Credits
Gift of Esperanza and Mark Schwartz in honour of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' 150th anniversary, inv. 2011.220
Collection
International Contemporary Art
This Standing Nude is an example of a significant aspect of the American Pop artist Wesselmann’s oeuvre, his steel drawings, which took his art in a new direction in the early 1980s at a time before any artist had used the technique of laser cutting. In fact, those drawings are among Wesselmann’s most outstanding contributions to the history of art, and the steel-cutting technique he developed has become so identified with him that virtually no one since has ventured to use it.
Dating from 1985, it was the third steel drawing to be executed by Wesselmann. Ten different “variations” of the work were produced, six of them painted in colour and four in black alone. It should be noted that each variation is unique, as the artist painted them individually, and the colours vary from one to the other.
© Esate of Tom Wesselmann / VAGA, New York / SOCAN (2020)
