Nude 1979

Reuben Nakian, born in 1897, was an American sculptor whose bronze artwork, ‘Nude,’ invites questions about social and institutional values associated with classical art. Nakian's rough handling of the nude form rejects the polished look of classical sculpture. The social history of this form is one of power, gender, and class. In Nakian’s time, academic institutions used the nude form to promote particular social values, often linked to a conservative world view. But the mid-20th century in America was also an era of sexual liberation and the challenging of gender norms. The visual codes of Nakian’s ‘Nude’ seem to ask: what is the role of the nude in a society that questions traditional hierarchies? The historian uses archival material, like exhibition catalogues and artists' letters, to reconstruct these contexts. The meaning of a work of art is always conditional to its social and institutional setting.