The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 19, 2024
Photographs of a Standing Male Nude Model ("Joseph Smith")
c. 1883
circle of Thomas Eakins
(American, 1844–1916)
Image: 8.2 x 2.9 cm (3 1/4 x 1 1/8 in.); Matted: 35.6 x 45.7 cm (14 x 18 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1997.131
Location: not on view
Description
Eakins’s earliest use of photography was as a visual aid to painting. In the early 1880s, he began photographic experiments that would allow him to create a more accurate and convincing rendering of anatomy and the human form in motion. Recognizing the assistance these visual reminders could provide the artist, Eakins and his circle began photographing a series of nude forms modeled by men, women, and children. These images, which he called the Naked Series, consist of seven contact-printed photographs mounted on cardboard strips. They show the models from the front, side, and rear posed in contrapposto positions or with their weight equally distributed. Eakins’s other photographic endeavors included a series on the figure in motion—photographs that were clearly used as studies for paintings—and more traditional portraits and figural groupings.- (Charles Isaacs Photographs, Inc., New York, NY)June 2, 1997The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- PROOF: Photography in the Era of the Contact Sheet. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-November 29, 2020).Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24-September 16, 2007).The Cleveland Museum of Art (6/24/07 - 9/16/07); "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art", no exhibition catalogue.
- {{cite web|title=Photographs of a Standing Male Nude Model ("Joseph Smith")|url=false|author=Thomas Eakins|year=c. 1883|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1997.131