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The nude in American painting, 1950-1980 / David McCarthy.

By: Publication details: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1998.Description: xii, 253 pages : illustrations ; 26 cmISBN:
  • 0521593166
  • 9780521593168
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction -- Ambition, "perversity", and tradition: Larry Rivers -- Modernism, surveillance, and the photographic: Philip Pearlstein -- Of playboys, pinups, and the "Great American Nude": Tom Wesselmann -- Eros as protest: Neil Welliver and Alfred Leslie -- Feminist revisions: Sylvia Sleigh and Joan Semmel -- Conclusion.
Summary: This study focuses on selected nudes by seven noted American painters, including Larry Rivers, Tom Wesselmann, Sylvia Sleigh and Joan Semmel, and examines the complex range of issues and ideas associated with the nude in postwar American culture. In a period that witnessed the shaping of sexual liberation by the Kinsey reports, the publication of Playboy, and the feminist critique of sexism and identity, the nude, David McCarthy argues, served as an ideal subject for the return of painting to an engagement with the most important issues of its historical moment.
Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Barcode
Book Book CGLAS Library Gold 704.9421 MCC (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 12576

Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-243) and index.

Introduction -- Ambition, "perversity", and tradition: Larry Rivers -- Modernism, surveillance, and the photographic: Philip Pearlstein -- Of playboys, pinups, and the "Great American Nude": Tom Wesselmann -- Eros as protest: Neil Welliver and Alfred Leslie -- Feminist revisions: Sylvia Sleigh and Joan Semmel -- Conclusion.

This study focuses on selected nudes by seven noted American painters, including Larry Rivers, Tom Wesselmann, Sylvia Sleigh and Joan Semmel, and examines the complex range of issues and ideas associated with the nude in postwar American culture. In a period that witnessed the shaping of sexual liberation by the Kinsey reports, the publication of Playboy, and the feminist critique of sexism and identity, the nude, David McCarthy argues, served as an ideal subject for the return of painting to an engagement with the most important issues of its historical moment.