Great American Nude No. 66

1965

American, 1931 - 2004

The female nude was a particularly fetishized image for consumption. In 1953, Playboy magazine launched its first issue and peddled certain pin-up conventions to an upper-class market. In Wesselmann's Great American Nude paintings, he replaces the Western canon of idealized female nudes with a standardized, mass-produced image. Here the body of allegorical beauty is reimagined as a consumer good -- without eyes, the female body remains unsettlingly lifeless, like a billboard.

- Catharina Manchanda, Jon & Mary Shirley Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, Pop Departures, October 9, 2014 - January 11, 2015

Oil and acrylic on canvas

73 x 73 1/2 in. (185.4 x 186.7 cm)

Gift of the Virginia and Bagley Wright Collection, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum

2020.15.39

Provenance: The artist; [Green Gallery, New York]; purchased by Virginia and Bagley Wright, Seattle, Washington, June 10, 1965

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistoryNew York, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Young America, June 23 - Aug. 29, 1965. Reproduced.

Washington, D.C., Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Twentieth Century Painting from the Collections in the State of Washington, Sept. 18 - Oct. 30, 1966.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, American Art: Third Quarter Century, Aug. 22 - Oct. 14, 1973. Text by Jan van der Marck. Cat. no. 73, reproduced p. 45.

Portland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum, American Art: A Portland Perspective, Nov. 28, 1984 - Jan. 20, 1985.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Collects Paintings: Works from
Private Collections, May 22 - Sept. 7, 1997.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, The Virginia and Bagley Wright Collection of Modern Art, Mar. 4, 1999 - May 5, 1999.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Pop Departures, Oct. 9, 2014 - Jan. 11, 2015. Text by Catharina Manchanda. No cat. no., p. 103, reproduced p. 63.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, City of Tomorrow: Jinny Wright and the Art That Shaped a New Seattle, Oct. 23, 2020 - Jan. 18, 2021.

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