Studio Scenes No. 2: The Rest Period

In this work Neumann depicts Goodridge Roberts, the artist with whom he shared his studio. The model who is looking at the artist’s canvas probably alludes to The Painter’s Studio by Gustave Courbet, an iconic French Realist work. Neumann’s concern for realism is further apparent in the contrast of the placement of the two Classical sculptures in these two studio scenes executed in the same year, with the Venus de Milo in the first forming the counterpart to the running nude man in the second.