Dimensions: support: 813 x 654 mm frame: 1028 x 865 x 110 mm
Copyright: © Tate | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
How is this painting different from traditional nudes? Why is this depiction of the female body so radical? Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) painted this untitled nude between 1922 and 1923. Here, the artist depicts a seated nude woman with brown hair and rosy cheeks. The woman casually slouches on a chair, her arm comfortably draped over its back. Her other arm rests against her thigh. She does not attempt to cover her body, creating a natural and comfortable tone. Bell depicts the woman looking downward, as if she has been caught in a snapshot of thought. Crucially, the sitter is not objectified. Her body is unfiltered – Bell has not hidden her body hair, and depicts the woman’s real body with natural curves and rolls. This comfortable realism is a world away from the idealised, unrealistic bodies shown in classical nude paintings. These bodies are often completely hairless, and the women are depicted as passive objects. Why might Vanessa Bell, as a female artist working during the 1920s, choose to represent a woman in this way? How does it challenge expectations?
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tate 3 months ago
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Vanessa Bell usually painted still lifes and portraits of her family, but she experimented briefly with abstract art when encouraged by Roger Fry and Duncan Grant. The subject here is a professional model, and the picture was probably painted as an exercise when Bell returned seriously to painting after bringing up her daughter. She then visited Paris, where she admired the new paintings by Picasso of monumental nudes. Her still lifes always give a sense of the pleasure of touch, with warm earth colours, and these are also features of her appraisal of this plump young woman.This painting was chosen by Wendy Cope. Gallery label, August 2004
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