Andy Warhol Nudes

Andy Warhol created some of the strongest iconic images of this century -- highly public images of everything from Campbell's soup cans and the Empire State Building to Mao and Marilyn Monroe. This book celebrates his art of a more private nature, his representations of the naked human body as paintings, prints and drawings. It includes a group of "pretty" nudes from the 50s, where sex organs are depicted as a desirable consumer good, not unlike his advertising illustrations for shoes; the "Torso Series" of the 70s, based on Polaroids; some large drawings from the 70s and 80s; and a series of prints, "Sex Parts", from 1978.Linda Nochlin's astute and authoritative essay provides a context for Warhol's nudes. She asserts that his nudes of the 70s brilliantly navigate the shadowy territory between the two (arguably) mutually exclusive categories of the classical male nude and pornography; she gives an account of his sexually explicit Polaroid sessions with live models; and comments beautifully on the significance of the cropping in Warhol's nudes. Fifty-three works are represented here, drawing comparisons to artists as diverse as Paul Cadmus, Poussin, Michelangelo, Jasper Johns and Aubrey Beardsley. A significant part of the Warhol oeuvre, the nudes collected for the first time here are both important and pleasurable.