Wesselmann, Tom (1931–2004). Painter, printmaker, and sculptor
An important contributor to *pop art, he is best known for 1960s compositions featuring nude females together with still life elements or, less often, landscapes. This series of Great American Nudes portrays erotic desire as an unremarkable aspect of consumer culture. In the style of billboard advertisements, the nudes and their faces are generally flatly painted, with only lips, nipples, and/or genitals given conspicuous definition. By oddly cropping the bodies, Wesselmann further dehumanized his voluptuous, bourgeois odalisques, who usually repose in brightly rendered middle-class interiors. Attentively depicted home appliances and processed food items contribute to an atmosphere of modern convenience and abundance. Some of the Nudes combine painted surfaces with actual products, such as radios or soft-drink bottles. At once celebratory and sardonic, his signature works reflect the increasing affluence of mid-twentieth-century American homes while also registering commercialism’s assault on individual psychology. In the 1970s the sexual content of his work became more pointed, as he gave large-scale, decorative presence to isolated body parts, especially mouths, as in the Smoker series. His nudes and figural fragments, as well as their still life and landscape accompaniments, eventually inhabited sculptural space in an extended and sometimes highly abstracted series of inventive free-standing and wall-mounted cutouts. He also worked prolifically in several print media.... ...
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